Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

BrexitZero hoursEmployment lawGig economyEmployment contracts

“Worker” status should be abolished, MPs told

by Rob Moss 7 Mar 2017
by Rob Moss 7 Mar 2017 Jeff Blackler/REX/Shutterstock
Jeff Blackler/REX/Shutterstock

The distinction between “employee” and “worker” should be abolished, according to experts called before the first morning’s hearing of an inquiry into the Future World of Work.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee launched its inquiry in October 2016 into the changing nature of work, and the status and rights of workers in non-traditional employment roles.

This morning’s sessions looked at protections for gig economy and agency workers, responsibilities for tax reporting, umbrella and personal service companies and the role of trade unions.

Employment status news

Court of Appeal: “self-employed” plumber has worker rights

Acas updates its guidance to reflect gig economy developments

Employment status resources

Determining employment status

How to employ an individual on a casual or zero hours contract

David Widdowson, from the Employment Lawyers Association, outlined the current three-tier structure of employment relationships with “employees” at the top, who have the most rights, the intermediate category of “worker” who have some rights, and the self-employed who have very few rights.

“Inevitably, that is going to induce many businesses to look to minimise their regulatory burden by trying to structure their relationships so that people are slotted into the least burdensome category. And a good example of that is the recent Uber case.”

He explained that the courts have to intervene because what might start out as a clear self-employment relationship, in practice “turns into something quite different”.

“At the moment, employees have all the rights, workers have some. You could simply just create one category of ‘worker’,” said Widdowson. “Now that would be quite a radical solution but it would have the advantage of removing quite a lot of the reason for the litigation there has been.”

He continued: “The issue for the legislature would be whether you level everybody up to where employees are, or whether you level down to where workers are. Obviously there would be some political debate about whether you should be taking rights away from workers.

“You might also find yourself – as we speak – in conflict with EU law if you were looking to adjust some of the rights that workers presently have.

“But that might not be the case for too much longer,” he added, in reference to Brexit.

In the second session of the morning, Sue Tumelty, founder of The HR Dept, an HR consultancy for small and medium businesses, agreed that having employees and workers was too much and that “the worker category should go”.

She told MPs that SMEs found employment status confusing. “They’re getting poor advice,” she said. “They go to the bank and the bank says ‘Make them self-employed – it’s safer’ or they say ‘zero hours contract or casual’. They’re not getting the true advice and they don’t understand the difference between worker, employee and self-employed. It’s all a bit of a fudge.”

She urged MPs to provide simplification. “We want flexibility for SMEs, we do passionately want protection for workers as well because you don’t build a good business by treating people badly. And we want genuine choice and clear definition about the self-employed.

“Where you’ve got people on false self-employment, there is no protection.  So you can get cleaning companies that take these – often – east European cleaners, they give them a uniform, they put them in a van … they make them clean, and they call them ‘self-employed’. And they have no rights whatsoever and they can get rid of them that day.”

They go to the bank and the bank says ‘Make them self-employed – it’s safer’” – Sue Tumelty, The HR Dept

Asked by committee chair Iain Wright MP for recommendations to simplify the system, Tumelty said: “There needs to be protection at the lower end so that nobody is forced into self-employment where there is not genuine choice.”

Stephen Devlin, senior economist, New Economics Foundation agreed, saying there should be a “minimum floor of standards” across the board, that reduces the incentive to flip between employment categories.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Hannah Reed of the TUC said: “There should be a floor of rights for all working people, a single worker definition. Secondly, we need better-resourced, more strategic enforcements, to clamp down on unlawful practices.

“And thirdly, we should recognise that trade unions can play a key role in stamping out Victorian working practices, raising employment standards and working with [employers] to deliver flexible profitable productive businesses.”

Rob Moss

Rob Moss is a business journalist with more than 25 years' experience. He has been editor of Personnel Today since 2010. He joined the publication in 2006 as online editor of the award-winning website. Rob specialises in labour market economics, gender diversity and family-friendly working. He has hosted hundreds of webinar and podcasts. Before writing about HR and employment he ran news and feature desks on publications serving the global optical and eyewear market, the UK electrical industry, and energy markets in Asia and the Middle East.

previous post
HMRC denies its new employment status tool is unreliable
next post
BBC reporter’s employment case struck out

You may also like

UK and EU agree to collaborate on ‘youth...

19 May 2025

Minister defends Employment Rights Bill at Acas conference

16 May 2025

CBI chair Soames accuses ministers of not listening...

16 May 2025

EHRC bows to pressure and extends gender consultation

15 May 2025

Contract cleaner loses EAT race discrimination appeal

14 May 2025

Construction workers win compensation claim against defunct employer

9 May 2025

Zero-hours workers’ rights to be extended from beyond...

8 May 2025

How can businesses build protections for gig workers?

7 May 2025

Employment tribunal backlog up 23% in a year

7 May 2025

Ministers urged to outlaw misuse of NDAs

7 May 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+