that of the employer. - Homeworkers Worldwide

Chapter 5: Employment status“Employ homeworkers, don’t take them for granted.”“Give us the same rights as people who go out to work, sick pay,maternity pay and pension.”“Homeworkers should have an employment contract to say whatrights you have got.”Thousands of workers in the UK are vulnerable to exploitation fromunscrupulous employers , either because they do not have full employeestatus, or because it is unclear whether they have employment status ornot. Uncertain employment status is a major problem for homeworkers inthe UK, as well as other kinds of atypical workers such as agency workersand temporary workers.Homeworkers who have worked for a company for several years,frequently on low wages, and often taking on rushed orders at shortnotice at the company’s convenience, can discover if they becomepregnant, fall ill or their work simply stops they have no protection underthe law, because they are not ‘employees.’Types of statusThere are three main types of employment status under UK law atpresent: employees, workers and the self-employed. Qualifying hurdlesand exclusions may apply, but in broad terms:• Employees are entitled to the full range of employment rights andprotection in respect of unfair dismissal, redundancy, sick leaveand pay, maternity leave and pay, the right to written terms andconditions.• Workers are entitled to a smaller range of basic protections - themost significant for homeworkers being minimum wage andholiday pay .• The self-employed are free to negotiate their own terms with thepeople they contract with.“Give us the samerights as peoplewho go out towork, sick pay,maternity pay andpension.”In practice many homeworkers do not receive full employment rightsand – if challenged – their employers can argue they are ‘workers’ andnot technically ‘employees’. The only way this can be resolved is at anEmployment Tribunal which can be both an extremely stressful processand highly unpredictable.Alternatively homeworkers may be told by their employers that they areself-employed even if they do not in practice have the independence orcontrol over their work patterns that would enable them to genuinelynegotiate terms. False self-employment is just another way for Technically those who engage homeworkers as ‘workers’ or ‘self-employed’ are notstrictly ‘employers’ as they are not employing homeworkers as ‘employees’. However, in theabsence of a suitable term to describe all those who pay homeworkers to work for them across aspectrum of employment relationships, this report uses ‘employer’ as a general term. Workers may be entitled to statutory sick pay if they are paying Class 1 National Insurancecontributions through their employer.22 23