Managing employees/workers
Our resident experts at Pinsents bring you a comprehensive update on all the latest decisions that could affect your organisation, and advice on what to do about them.
In Dacas v Brook Street Bureau (UK) Ltd and another, the EAT holds that an employment tribunal erred in law when it found an agency worker not to be an employee of the agency during the course of an individual assignment, in circumstances where an application of the test of the two minimum requirements of the degree of control and mutuality of obligations pointed overwhelmingly towards the existence of a contract of employment.
In Qua v John Ford Morrison Solicitors, the EAT holds that the statutory right to take a "reasonable amount of time off" to care for dependants is a right that applies during working hours to enable employees to deal with the variety of specified unexpected or sudden events affecting their dependants, and in order to make any "necessary" longer-term arrangements for their care.
In Evans v Malley Organisation Ltd t/a First Business Support the Court of Appeal holds that an employee who was paid a basic salary, plus commission which depended on contracts he won for his employer, was entitled, on termination of his employment, to accrued statutory holiday pay calculated by reference to his basic pay alone, and not his average pay including commission.
In Hill v Chapell, the EAT holds that there was no "overpayment" of holiday pay or of wages in circumstances where an employee was entitled, under the Working Time Regulations 1998, to 20 days' paid holiday per annum, and had taken 15 days' paid holiday by agreement with her employer during her six months of employment.
In Addison & Addison (t/a Brayton News) v Ashby, the EAT holds that a 15-year-old "paper boy" is not a "worker" for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations 1998, and so is not entitled to four weeks' paid annual leave under the Regulations.
In Curr v Marks & Spencer plc the Court of Appeal holds that an employee who took a four-year break from work under her employer's "child-break scheme", after which she was re-engaged, had not been absent from work in circumstances such that "by arrangement she was regarded as continuing in the employment" during that break when no contract of employment subsisted.
Article 141 of the EC Treaty of Rome is not limited to situations where men and women work for the same employer, but it does not cover the situation where pay differences between equal pay claimants and their comparators cannot be attributed to a single source, so that there is no single body responsible for the inequality and which can restore equal treatment, the European Court of Justice holds in Lawrence and others v Regent Office Care Ltd and others.
In Soteriou v Ultrachem, Solvo Ltd and Ultracolour Ltd, the EAT upholds an employment tribunal's decision that an employee's knowing and active participation in the deception of the tax authorities as to his employment status was primarily for his own benefit.
Where, in a protected disclosure case, the employee had not served the requisite qualifying period to bring an unfair dismissal complaint, the critical issue for the tribunal is whether or not the protected disclosure provisions in the Employment Rights Act 1996 have been satisfied on the evidence, and not substantive or procedural unfairness, which would have been the central issue in a claim for "ordinary" unfair dismissal, the Court of Appeal holds in ALM Medical Services Ltd v Bladon.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to managing employees/workers.