Almost two years ago, I mentioned the English Court of Appeal’s decision in Uber BV & Ors v Aslam & Ors [2018] EWCA Civ 2748 on appeal from UKEAT/0056/17/DA), where individuals working as taxi drivers for Uber were to be classified as workers not self-employed individuals.
This decision was a significant defeat for Uber, but it was hardly going to be the last word in the story and so it proved. An appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court was always going to be on the cards and, on Friday 19 February, the Justices issued their judgement (see Uber BV & Ors v Aslam & Ors [2021] UKSC 5).
The Supreme Court was asked to consider two questions by Uber:
Whether the drivers (the Respondents) were “workers” providing personal services to the Second Appellant.
If the Respondents were “workers”, what periods constituted their “working time”.
The result? Uber drivers are workers not self-employed individuals. Essentially, the Supreme Court has approved the earlier decision of the English Court of Appeal.
Although Uber drivers won’t acquire full employment status, this decision is, nonetheless, highly significant. It will, for example, mean that Uber drivers will be protected under the National Minimum Wage legislation and the Working Time Regulations.
Paragraphs 94 to 102 of the Supreme Court’s decision are really instructive. The Court found the following matters extremely significant:
The rates of pay for taxi drivers was set solely by Uber
The contractual terms were dictated solely by Uber
Uber constrained or restricted the ability of drivers to decline jobs
Uber strictly vetted the type of vehicle which drivers could use for jobs and the technology used by drivers was “wholly owned” by Uber
The communication between a driver and a passenger was severely restricted by Uber in order “to prevent drivers from establishing any relationship with a passenger capable of extending beyond an individual ride.”
As Lord Leggatt (who delivered the unanimous judgement of the Court) stated at paragraph 102:
“Taking these factors together, it can be seen that the transportation service performed by drivers and offered to passengers through the Uber app is very tightly defined and controlled by Uber. Furthermore, it is designed and organised in such a way as to provide a standardised service to passengers in which drivers are perceived as substantially interchangeable and from which Uber, rather than individual drivers, obtains the benefit of customer loyalty and goodwill. From the drivers’ point of view, the same factors – in particular, the inability to offer a distinctive service or to set their own prices and Uber’s control over all aspects of their interaction with passengers – mean that they have little or no ability to improve their economic position through professional or entrepreneurial skill. In practice the only way in which they can increase their earnings is by working longer hours while constantly meeting Uber’s measures of performance.”
Worker is a term which is widely used in EU equality and employment law, but a single definition does not exist. As a result of the U.K.‘s long relationship with the EU, the term has entered the British legal systems and, in the interim period, Brexit will not change this fact.
In Allonby v Accrington and Rossendale College (Case C-256/01) [2004] ICR 1328; [2004] ECR I-873 the Court of Justice made the following observation:
“… there must be considered as a worker a person who, for a certain period of time, performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he receives remuneration …”
In Syndicatul Familia Constanta v Directia Generala de Asistenta Sociala si Protectia Copilului Constanta (Case C-147/17) EU:C:2018:926; [2019] ICR 211, the Court of Justice of the EU was strongly of the opinion that the relationship between employer and worker was of a “hierarchical” nature. This was a view echoed by Lord Clarke in the Supreme Court’s decision of Hashwani v Jivraj [2011] UKSC 40; [2011] 1 WLR 1872 where he identified the relationship as one of “subordination” in favour of the person receiving the services.
That said, Baroness Hale in a later Supreme Court decision – Clyde and Co LLP and Anor v Bates van Winkelhof [2014] UKSC 32 – stated that “while subordination may sometimes be an aid to distinguishing workers from other self-employed people, it is not a freestanding and universal characteristic of being a worker”. This remark was quoted with approval by Lord Leggatt in the Uber decision at paragraph 74 of his judgement.
In other words, such a feature is merely to be deployed as one of the many possible tests that can be used by the courts to analyse a relationship between two parties.
The Employment Rights Act 1996
Section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 contains the definition of who precisely is an employee i.e. someone who has a contract of service. If you don’t have this type of contractual arrangement (you’re not an employee), you may well be working under a contract for services. This is one of the most important distinctions in employment law in the United Kingdom.
Section 230(3) of the Act also defines in law an individual who is a ‘worker’. This can include someone who provides services under an employment contract – and, crucially, some individuals who fall into the self-employed category.
Conclusion
Individuals working under a contract for services – precisely because of their lack of employment status – are often denied access to the sorts of legal rights which employees routinely take for granted e.g. unfair dismissal protection, redundancy protection, family friendly rights.
There are notable exceptions (aren’t there always?): high earning British television celebrities (e.g. Lorraine Kelly) or a number of BBC news journalists have preferred to be treated as freelancers or self-employed persons. Why? They can then minimise their exposure to income tax liability in a way (often via the medium of personal service companies) that would not be possible because if they were employees they would almost certainly be taxed at source on a PAYE (pay as you earn) basis.
We have seen an explosion in the type of work that is often characterised or labelled as the ‘gig economy’. This work is often characterised by a distinct lack of employment rights; irregular working patterns; chronic insecurity; lack of long term career progression; and low pay. It is often impossible for such individuals to complete the necessary periods continuous service to acquire employment rights.
Companies such as Deliveroo, Lyft and Uber have become synonymous with the ‘gig economy’, as have whole sectors of the employment
There’s now a growing awareness on both the part of the UK Government (The Taylor Review) and the European Union (the forthcoming EU Directive on Transparent and predictable working conditions) that people on contracts for services deserve greater levels of work-place protection.
It’s not just in the UK that debates about employment status are currently playing out. At the tail end of 2019, it was with particular interest that, in 2019/20, I was following a story from the United States which highlighted many of the issues which I have just been discussing in this Blog.
The US State of California enacted a law, Assembly Bill 5 2019 or AB5 (known more popularly as the gig economy law) giving those individuals working in the gig economy more employment rights. The law came into force on 1 January 2020.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also exposed the lack of employment protection for workers and the self-employed. Only last March, I was writing about the fact that the U.K. Government’s reforms to Statutory Sick Pay would would not include approximately 2 million individuals – a situation that Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC was quick to highlight.
By Stephanie Crainey, Ross Codona and Briege Elder (Editor: SJ Crossan)
Introduction
Sport is often viewed as a special entity whereby the law and legal systems do not directly interfere with its rules (Laver, 2020). Therefore, the rules under which a particular sport is played are not an area where the legal system will usually interfere.
The government in the United Kingdom has adopted this non-interventionist approach to sport, meaning there is no general law for sport. Instead regulation is left to the National Governing Bodies (NBGs) (Bennett, 2019).
However, with the turn of a new decade and the economic crash caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, some major issues in sports law have arisen, including whether an athlete is an employee or worker, the terms and conditions governing athletes and their use of social media platforms. Can these issues possibly be addressed, never mind resolved?
Is an Athlete an employee or a worker?
Above British cyclist, Jess Varnish (right) who is currently involved in legal action against British Cycling and UK Sport over her employment status
The question of an individual’s employment status is always up for debate no matter which profession we are discussing. The focus of this question, in recent times, is mainly focused around the gig economy. This type of work might involve individuals providing a service e.g taxi driver (Uber) or food delivery (Nicholson, 2019).
However, due to the nature of the work (short-term and very insecure), gig economy workers are not usually granted the same rights and protection as employees under UK employment law.
Attempts have now been made to address this situation: in 2017, Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts and former Downing Street adviser, was commissioned by the UK Government to conduct an independent review on modern working practices; and in the US State of California, Assembly Bill 5 was passed into law in 2020 giving gig economy workers employment status. The Taylor Review looked at the growth of the UK gig economy and considered its implications for worker rights and responsibilities (Nicholson, 2019). Despite the widespread attention that the Californian Assembly Bill 5 and the Taylor report both received, there is still not sufficient clarity surrounding the status of workers who provide services in the gig economy.
In 2018 the issue of employment status and sport received a lot of media attention when former Great Britain cyclist, Jessica Varnish argued that she ‘should be considered an employee of British Cycling or of the funding agency, UK Sport.’(McGowan, 2019). The world silver medallist set out to prove she was, in fact, an employee in order to enable her to sue British Cycling and UK Sport for both wrongful dismissal and sexual discrimination, after she was dropped by team GB before the 2016 Olympics. Shane Sutton, former British Cycling director, was found to have used sexist language toward Varnish, although he denied these claims. Sutton later left his post with British Cycling.
Unfortunately, for Varnish, she lost her claim for wrongful dismissal at the Employment Tribunal in early 2019. Put simply, the Tribunal held that she was not an employee of either British Cycling or UK Sport and, therefore, she was not entitled to bring such a claim. Varnish has now appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
The appeal hearing could either overturn the decision of the Tribunal or order a new hearing to take place. Varnish stated:
“Iwant to give others the opportunity to hold to account employees of governing bodies, who they interact with on a daily basis, and have significant control over their careers and opportunities.”
She added:
“I continue to think it’s unfair that athletes still have no structured means to do this, and I hope this appeal will be the first step towards affecting change, and bring about a fairer, more modern and high performance system in the UK where athlete welfare is not just a sound bite, but something that we all believe in.” (McGowan, 2019).
In response to her statement, a British Cycling spokesmen added:
“We very much regret that Jess has been advised to pursue the route of an employment tribunal when other avenues were available to her….. We will continue to represent what we believe are the best interests of every rider currently supported through the high performance system, and all those in our sport who hope to one day compete at an Olympics or Paralympics.” (McGowan, 2019).
Employment rights: employees vs workers
Determining the question of Jessica’s Varnish’s employment status (employee or worker) is vital to this case as it will decide what employee rights she is entitled to (if any).
True, most workers are protected against unlawful discrimination in terms of the Equality Act 2010, and harassment and victimisation in relation to ‘whistle-blowing’ actions (reporting of wrong doing in the work place). However, you must be an employee in order to be protected from unfair and wrongful dismissal (CIPD, 2020)
Section 230 of the Employment Rights act 1996 defines an employee as “an individual who has entered into or works under a contract of employment.”
Over many years, UK courts and Tribunals have developed specific tests that must be fulfilled in order to assess an individual’s employment status (Crossan, 2017). These include:
Mutuality of obligation
The control test
The economic reality test
The organisation or integration test
The definition of a worker (which is a wider concept than an employee) can also be found in different pieces of legislation e.g. the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Working Times Regulations 1998. The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) defines a worker as:
‘an individual who undertakes to do or perform personally any work or service for another party, whether under a contract of employment or any other contract.’(CIPD, 2020).
Although the CIPD definition is based on the Employment Rights Act 1996, the definition of worker varies from statute to statute.
As in other parts of the UK employment market, the employment status of athletes will often be a contested concept, meaning that the various tests listed above will have to be deployed by the courts and Tribunals to resolve the issue. It is notable that a large part of Jessica Varnish’s original Tribunal action focused on the control test i.e. she had to follow the training regime laid down by British Cycling in order to be eligible for continued funding from UK Sport.
Athletes in the world of social media
Social media is a great way for an athlete to connect with their existing fans. As well as this, it also allows you, the individual fan to connect with others whom you have never met, such as other fans of your team/sport, or supporters from your hometown etc. Athletes, amateur and elite, can have their use of social media restricted and regulated through provisions contained in Standard Player Contracts.
This is completely understandable from the point of a view of an employer or sponsor because an athlete’s online activities/posts may bring about critical, reputational harm and financial loss to partnered clubs and associations. Athletes’ contracts may contain certain restrictions on what they can and can’t post on social media. However, these restrictions may or will vary from specific social media targeted polices (“blackout” before during and after games), to more general restrictions which cover wider aspects of an athlete’s behaviour (Social Media In Sport: Top Tips, 2020).
Clubs and organisation are urged routinely to remind athletes with regard to what is appropriate and inappropriate online behaviour. This can incorporate a reminder to athletes that, while they are not participating in the activity, they still have commitments to the employer and sponsors and are expected to stick to an agreed code of conduct – just as though they were working. Athletes may have both a personal and professional social media account, but the restrictions and requirements that they are expected to adhere do not change.
Social media allows athletes to secure sponsorship. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are just some of the ways to reach thousands of people who you would not normally be able to target.
In the UK, athletes and brands must take care when posting promotions and sponsored posts. This is regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice Codes. The CAP code requires that all advertising is easily identifiable.
In 2012, professionalfootballers, Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshire broke this requirement after they posted a tweet under Nikes campaign slogan ‘#makeitcount’. The two athletes failed to make it clear that the tweets were in fact from Nike’s marketing communications. For an athlete or any individual using social media for promotional purposes, they must add ‘#spon’ or ‘#ad’ to a post, something which both Rooney and Wilshire failed to do. This helps to make the advertising easily identifiable and prevents anyone from failing to meet the requirements (Social Media In Sport: Top Tips, 2020).
A delicate balancing act
Guidelines for athletes to follow for social media may vary from each profession. It’s no surprise that what Athletes post can be seen potentially by millions of people around the world. There is a need to ensure that, before posting any content, they are happy with what they are about to upload. Are they happy for the post to be linked back to them and be easily accessible forever? Would they be happy if the post was to end up appearing somewhere which was not intended e.g TV, gossip magazines/blogs? It can be a very delicate balancing act.
It is important to respect yourself, your sport and the club/organisation of which you are part. Anyone, especially a public figure (such as athletes), must ask themselves, how might this be portrayed or received by my followers? Will this reflect negatively upon their “role model” status? Could my post effect sponsorship for them or the sport?
These are just a few guidelines that Scottish athletes have to consider Athletes must also ensure that the amount of time they are spending on social media is not affecting their performance. All of these factors are essential when considering what content to upload and share with your followers on social media. Ultimately it’s all about having respect for your audience and yourself.
Maternal/paternal rights for athletes
Many employees receive family-friends benefits which include parental leave or childcare. Diageo, for example, is a UK beverage company which recently introduced female employees to be offered a minimum of 26 weeks fully paid maternity leave under a new global policy (Rennie and Beach, 2020). The vast majority of employees, by contrast will receive just the statutory minimum maternity pay.
Maternity rights
Sporting bodies are generally falling behind in creating Family-Friendly policies which is inconsistent with modern attitudes towards athletes’ rights. Many British athletes e.g Jessica Ennis-Hill and Jo Pavey are parents, yet have still made a successful return to sport.
UK Sport Guidance states thatif a female athlete becomes pregnant they can continue to receive World Class Programme funding and support during pregnancy and after child birth. She (the mother) and her performance director are expected to agree a new appropriate training and competition programme that would map the athlete’s return.
Three months after childbirth, the sports performance director is encouraged to undertake a review with the athlete in order to assess them on her commitment to the agreed plan. By the end of the three months, if the athlete has made the decision that they in fact do not want to return to the sport, then they would be given a notice period depending on the length of time that they had been involved on the World Class Programme before they were then removed from funding (Falkingham, 2020).
Paternity rights
In 2019, the England Cricket team had its biannual tussle with rivals Australia. Batsman, Joe Denly, a new recruit to the England ranks, left the field at the end of the first 5 days of the final Test Match at the Oval in London. The athlete drove 60 miles to be with his wife for the birth of their daughter. The following day, Denly was back on the field facing the Australian bowlers. Joe then went on to create the highest score to date, only narrowly missing out on a Test century (Jackson and Brenner, 2018 and Anderson et al, 2019).
Denly’s story is a happier example than the experience of former Manchester United’s French star, Anthony Martial. The star was fined £180,000 and shamed publicly in 2018 for missing a week of training after flying to be his wife in order to support her through a difficult labour and welcome their son into the world. Two of the days in which he was away were dedicated to travel alone (Jackson and Brenner, 2018 and Anderson et al, 2019).
Sporting success is valued more than family. The famous one liner,“winners never quit and quitters never win” is one which athletes find so important. So much so that, in the 1990s, the President of Oakland athletics, Billy Bean missed his partner’s funeral in order to continue playing a game (Anderson et al, 2019).
These types of incidents sit completely at odds with decent treatment of employees. Organisations are increasing the length of time woman get full maternity pay. A study by the University of Birmingham found that only 9,200 new parents (just over 1% of individuals entitled) shared parental leave in 2017-18. However that rose to 10,700 in the financial year 2018-19. Companies now seem more willing to offer other options to just maternity leave, in the hope of recruiting and retaining high calibre employees (Birkett and Forbes, 2018).
How has Coronavirus has affected sport?
Law in sport is no different to ordinary law in that sporting organisations and sponsors have to respect and obey the rules. This has been particularly highlighted during the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Coronavirus has caused major sports leagues and events around the world to cease current activities or cancel upcoming events due to strict lockdown rules (The Independent, 2020). COVID-19 has forced governing bodies to try to intervene and protect institutions within their area, for example, FIFA (the governing body of football) has set up a £121 million relief fund for its 211 national associations (Keegan, 2020)
The lockdown laws which come as part of the pandemic haven’t just affected international bodies but also had an affect domestically. In Football, national leagues such as the Premier League in England have come to a halt until further notice ,whilst some other leagues around Europe declared their seasons over or null and void as they have in Ligue 1 (France) and the Eredivisie (The Netherlands).
The halting of sporting activities isn’t the only implication of this crisis: it has had a major impact on the employment of all those involved in sport directly or indirectly.
In the UK, furloughing has been introduced to try and help businesses to pay their employees. The furlough scheme means that the UK Government pays 80% of employees’ wages up to a ceiling of £2500 a month (HMRC, 2020).
This causes issues, however, for many professional, sporting institutions, as many athletes are earning far above £2500 a month. Therefore such individuals are ineligible to be furloughed placing sporting institutions under serious financial strain should players refuse to take wage cuts. FC Sion, a football team in Switzerland, were forced to terminate the contracts of 9 footballers after they refused to take pay cuts (BBC, 2020b)
In other instances, the furlough scheme has been supported and it has had the desired effect. The McLaren Formula 1 team main drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris have taken pay cuts in order to support their fellow employees on the team (Galloway, 2020)
Added to this, the UK Health Protection Regulations 2020 have prevented sports such as Formula 1, Football, Boxing or Rugby being performed because of current social distancing restrictions. Whilst this has had a detrimental effect on the sporting world as a whole, it has provided a boost in less traditional fields. E-sports have increased in prominence since the cancellation/postponement of traditional sporting events. Formula 1, in particular, has capitalised on the potential E-sports platform. Formula 1 has been hosting ‘virtual’ Grand Prixs where a mixture of current drivers, figures in the sport, other sportsmen or celebrities race against each other by using the official Formula 1 video game (Dixon, 2020).
The reaction has been positive as a reported 3.2 million viewers witnessed the inaugural virtual Grand Prix, the stature of many of those involved is testament to its success as prominent figures in world sport such as Thibaut Courtois, Ciro Immobile and Sir Chris Hoy have all competed in the virtual Grand Prix (Dixon, 2020)
The cancellation of major sporting matches and events is causing massive implications financially and logistically. In Rugby there had been suggestions that games in France could be played behind closed doors should the league be started again. Club owners highlighted objections to this, in particular, the owner of ‘Stade Toulouse’ would potentially lose millions of Euros before the end of the season should games be played behind closed doors (Ultimate Rugby, 2020).
The UK Health Protection Regulations 2020 have caused major financial implications to sporting institutions across the country. Leeds United, a football club competing in the English Championship, is set to miss out on lucrative financial benefits of promotion to the Premier League. Being promoted to the Premier League guarantees Clubs a large sum of prize money worth millions. However, the following season they spend in the premier league promises them close to £100 million even if they finish last place (Winters, 2020). This level of money could help Leeds United recover from its financial deficit. At the time of writing, all games have been postponed for the foreseeable future meaning that there is a lack of certainty as to what happens next.
Logistically on a global scale COVID-19 has caused the disruption of massive global events that take years of organisation to have now been postponed. Although some of the postponements are only estimated to be a year, the cost can still be detrimental. Reports claim that a one year delay of the Olympics could result in £2.3 billion in further costs (Mail online, 2020).
Conclusion
COVID-19 has emphasised key aspects of employment law, even at an elite level in sport there is more protection being employee rather than being a worker or self-employed. Many members of clubs and teams in different sports have agreed pay cuts. However, they are still being paid. This situation isn’t the same for professional golf: players are registered as self-employed. Footballers are still being paid or have at least agreed a deferral of wages or a temporary pay cut, but nevertheless, their employment contract still protects them during this time of major uncertainty. Golfing stars such as Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood do not have this protection unlike football stars such as Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling.
It is clear that UK employment law needs to do more in determining an athlete’s employment status. The UK Government must also work harder to protect athletes and their rights. Due to the catastrophic pandemic, not only will sports organisations and clubs suffer but also their athletes. The only certainty in these most uncertain times is that Covid-19 is likely to generate a plethora of future legal disputes which will shape our legal landscape, especially in the world of sport, for some time to come.
BBC, 2020a. Coronavirus: How The Virus Has Impacted Sporting Events Around The World. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/51605235> [Accessed 22 April 2020].
BBC, 2020b. FC Sion sack nine players for reportedly not taking pay cut because of coronavirus crisis. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51980881 [Accessed 22 April 2020].
HM Revenue & Customs, 2020. Check if you can claim for your employees’ wages through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme [Accessed 22 April 2020].
One of the most important common law duties that an employer has under the contract of employment is to pay wages to the employee.
This duty, of course, is contingent upon the employee carrying out his or her side of the bargain i.e. performing their contractual duties.
The right to be paid fully and on time is a basic right of any employee. Failure by employers to pay wages (wholly or partially) or to delay payment is a serious contractual breach.
Historically, employers could exploit employees by paying them in vouchers or other commodities. Often, these vouchers could be exchanged only in the factory shop. This led Parliament to pass the Truck Acts to prevent such abuses.
Sections 13-27 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (which replaced the Wages Act 1986) give employees some very important rights as regards the payment of wages.
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (and the associated statutory instruments) and the Equality Act 2010also contain important provisions about wages and other contractual benefits.
There are a number of key issues regarding the payment of wages:
All employees are entitled to an individual written pay statement (whether a hard or electronic copy)
The written pay statement must contain certain information
Pay slips/statements must be given on or before the pay date
Fixed pay deductions must be shown with detailed amounts and reasons for the deductions e.g. Tax, pensions and national insurance
Part time workers must get same rate as full time workers (on a pro rata basis)
Most workers entitled to be paid the National Minimum Wage or the National Minimum Living Wage (if over age 25) (NMW)
Some workers under age 19 may be entitled to the apprentice rate
Most workers (please note not just employees) are entitled to receive the NMW i.e. over school leaving age. NMW rates are reviewed each year by the Low Pay Commission and changes are usually announced from 1 April each year.
It is a criminal offence not to pay workers the NMW and they can also take (civil) legal action before an Employment Tribunal (or Industrial Tribunal in Northern Ireland) in order to assert this important statutory right.
There are certain individuals who are not entitled to receive the NMW:
Members of the Armed Forces
Genuinely self-employed persons
Prisoners
Volunteers
Students doing work placements as part of their studies
Workers on certain training schemes
Members of religious communities
Share fishermen
Pay deductions?
Can be lawful when made by employers …
… but in certain, limited circumstances only.
When exactly are deductions from pay lawful?:
Required or authorised by legislation (e.g. income tax or national insurance deductions);
It is authorised by the worker’s contract – provided the worker has been given a written copy of the relevant terms or a written explanation of them before it is made;
The consent of the worker has been obtained in writing before deduction is made.
Extra protection exists for individuals working in the retail sector making it illegal for employers to deduct more than 10% from the gross amount of any payment of wages (except the final payment on termination of employment).
Employees can take a claim to an Employment Tribunal for unpaid wages or unauthorised deductions from wages. They must do so within 3 months (minus 1 day) from the date that wages should have been paid or, if the deduction is an ongoing one, the time limit runs from the date of the last relevant deduction.
An example of a claim for unpaid wages can be seen below:
Regular readers of the Blog will be aware of the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 in relation to pay and contractual benefits. It will amount to unlawful sex discrimination if an employer pays a female worker less than her male comparator if they are doing:
Like work
Work of equal value
Work rated equivalent
Sick Pay
Some employees may be entitled to receive pay from the employer while absent from work due to ill health e.g. 6 months’ full pay & then 6 months’ half pay. An example of this can be seen below:
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
This is relevant in situations where employees are not entitled to receive contractual sick pay. Pre (and probably post Coronavirus crisis) it was payable from the 4th day of sickness absence only. Since the outbreak of the virus, statutory sick pay can paid from the first day of absence for those who either are infected with the virus or are self-isolating.
Contractual sick pay is often much more generous than SSP
2020: £95.85 per week from 6 April (compared to £94.25 SSP in 2019) which is payable for up to 28 weeks.
To be eligible for SSP, the claimant must be an employee earning at least £120 (before tax) per week.
Employees wishing to claim SSP submit a claim in writing (if requested) to their employer who may set a deadline for claims. If the employee doesn’t qualify for SSP, s/he may be eligible for Employment and Support Allowance.
Holiday Pay
As per the Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended), workers entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday entitlement (usually translates into 28 days) per year (Bank and public holidays can be included in this figure).
Some workers do far better in terms of holiday entitlement e.g. teachers and lecturers.
Part-time workers get holiday leave on a pro rata basis: a worker works 3 days a week will have their entitlement calculated by multiplying 3 by 5.6 which comes to 16.8 days of annual paid leave.
Employers usually nominate a date in the year when accrual of holiday pay/entitlement begins e.g. 1 September to 31st August each year. If employees leave during the holiday year, their accrued holiday pay will be part of any final payment they receive.
Holiday entitlement means that workers have the right to:
get paid for leave that they build up (‘accrue’) in respect of holiday entitlement during maternity, paternity and adoption leave
build up holiday entitlement while off work sick
choose to take holiday(s) instead of sick leave.
Guarantee payments
Lay-offs & short-time working
Employers can ask you to stay at home or take unpaid leave (lay-offs/short time working) if there’s not enough work for you as an alternative to making redundancies. There should be a clause in the contract of employment addressing such a contingency.
Employees are entitled to guarantee pay during lay-off or short-time working. The maximum which can be paid is £30 a day for 5 days in any 3-month period – so a maximum of £150 can be paid to the employee in question.
If the employee usually earn less than £30 a day, s/he will get their normal daily rate. Part-time employees will be paid on a pro rata basis.
How long can employees be laid-off/placed on short-time working?
There’s no limit for how long employees can be laid-off or put on short-time. They could apply for redundancy and claim redundancy pay if the lay-off/short-term working period has been:
4 weeks in a row
6 weeks in a 13-week period
Eligibility for statutory lay-off
pay
To be eligible, employees must:
have been employed continuously for 1 month (includes part-time workers)
reasonably make sure you’re available for work
not refuse any reasonable alternative work (including work not in the contract)
Not have been laid-off because of industrial action
Employer may have their own guarantee pay scheme
It can’t be less than the statutory arrangements.
If you get employer’s payments, you don’t get statutory pay in addition to this
Failure to receive guarantee payments can give rise to Employment Tribunal claims.
This is an extremely relevant issue with Coronavirus, but many employers are choosing to take advantage of the UK Government’s Furlough Scheme whereby the State meets 80% of the cost of an employee’s wages because the business is prevented from trading.
Redundancy payments
If an employee is being made redundant, s/he may be entitled to receive a statutory redundancy payment. To be eligible for such a payment, employees must have been employed continuously for more than 2 years.
The current weekly pay used to calculate redundancy payments is £525.
Employees will receive:
half a week’s pay for each full year that they were employed under 22 years old
one week’s pay for each full year they were employed between 22 and 40 years old
one and half week’s pay for each full year they were employed from age 41 or older
Redundancy payments are capped at £525 a week (£508 if you were made redundant before 6 April 2019).
Please find below a link which helps employees facing redundancy to calculate their redundancy payment:
What happens if the employer becomes insolvent and goes into liquidation?
Ultimately, the State will pay employees their wages, redundancy pay, holiday pay and unpaid commission that they would have been owed. This why the UK Government maintains a social security fund supported by national insurance contributions.
An example of a UK business forced into liquidation can be seen below:
Up to 900 workers lost their jobs when administrators closed 70 of the cafe chain’s outlets. Disclaimer:
Conclusion
Payment of wages is one of the most important duties that an employer must fulfil. It is also an area which is highly regulated by law, for example:
The common law
The Employment Rights Act 1996
The Working Time Regulations 1998
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998
The Equality Act 2010
Family friendly legislation e.g. adoption, bereavement, maternity, paternity
Failure by an employer to pay an employee (and workers) their wages and other entitlements can lead to the possibility of claims being submitted to an Employment Tribunal. The basic advice to employers is make sure you stay on top of this important area of employment law because it changes on a regular basis and ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Thanks to @beamomatic9000 for making this photo available freely on @unsplash 🎁
The COVID-19 crisis continues to throw up some interesting legal questions e.g. employment rights, EU freedom of movement rights, frustration of contract etc.
One area which seems somewhat overlooked is in relation to the actions of many retailers – principally supermarkets and grocery stores – which have been restricting sales of particular items. The items in question include soap, hand gel and sanitiser, bleach, anti-septic wipes, paper towels and even toilet rolls.
The COVID-19 situation has led to panic buying of these essential hygiene items and supermarkets have imposed clear limits on their sale.
Can supermarkets and other retailers impose these sorts of restrictions?
This, of course, takes us back to the basic rules governing the formation of a contract. Retailers are especially guilty when applying the term ‘offer’ to the goods which they stock. It is no such thing: goods on the shelves; on display; or in shop windows are invitations to treat. It is the the customer who is being invited to make the offer (see Fisher v Bell [1961]3 ALL ER 731 where the English Court of Appeal ruled that a knife displayed in a shop window was not being offered for sale, it was merely an invitation to treat. Lord Parker, the Chief Justice being particularly emphatic on this point).
In the seminal case of Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists [1953] 1 QB 401, the judges of the English Court of Appeal helpfully distinguished between an offer and an invitation to treat. The case arose as a result of a provision in the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933 which stipulated that the sale of certain medicines must take place in the presence of a registered pharmacist.
Boots Chemists operated a self service system whereby it’s customers were able to place the medicines which they wished to purchase in their shopping baskets. The key question was whether Boots was breaking the law by allowing customers to do this. In other words, was the sale completed when the customer placed the medicines in their baskets? Now, if goods on shelves were to be regarded as ‘offers’, Boots would indeed be breaking the law because customers would be deemed to be ‘accepting’ these ‘offers’ by placing the goods in question in their baskets.
If, on the other hand, the sale was concluded elsewhere i.e. at the cash register where there was always a registered pharmacist on duty, Boots would be fully complying with the Act.
The Court of Appeal concluded that it was the customer who made the offer by presenting the goods at the cash register. The sales assistant (properly supervised by the pharmacist) could conclude matters i.e. accept the offer by ringing the sale up on the cash register. Furthermore, it was always open to the assistant to refuse the customer’s offer. Goods on shelves were, therefore, merely an invitation to treat.
In more normal times, a customer’s offer would and should be refused by retailers because they are an underage person who is attempting to purchase e.g. alcohol, cigarettes or video games or DVDs which are age specific.
So, in this way, retailers are generally within their rights to impose strict limits on the numbers of certain items that customers wish to purchase. The customer can offer to buy 20 bottles of hand gel or sanitiser, but the store will have the right to refuse.
Presently, retailers are putting these sorts of restrictions into place in order to protect and promote public health by giving as many customers, as possible, reasonable access to basic hygiene products. If we co-opt the language of the Equality Act 2010, retailers are putting restrictions in place because these are a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. So, hopefully, such restrictions – if fairly implemented and monitored – will not be subject to a legal challenge on grounds of discrimination.
Governor Gavin Newsom of the US State of California declared a state wide emergency on Wednesday 4 March 2020 in order to counter the spread of the virus.
Please see a link below to an article in the Los Angeles’ Times concerning Governor Newsom’s announcement:
How are the recent developments in California linked to events in the UK?
It should be recalled that Governor Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 5 of 2019 in January of this year. You don’t remember this? Well, Assembly Bill 5 is better known as the Californian Gig Economy law which, in effect, gives thousands of workers employment status. Significantly, this means that many of these affected individuals will now benefit from greater levels of employment protection – including entitlement to sick pay.
Now, think about this: had the COVID-19 outbreak occurred last year, many Californian workers would have had absolutely no entitlement to receive sick pay if such individuals were forced to self-isolate or take time off because they had been infected. No doubt many of these workers turned employees will be breathing a huge sigh of relief that they are now covered by Assembly Bill 5.
Turning our attention to the UK, the British Government has taken a less generous approach to the issue of entitlement to sick pay. True, employees and other workers who already benefit from entitlement to statutory sick pay (SSP) should now be able to claim this from day 1 of sickness absence. It should be emphasised that this is a temporary measure justified on emergency grounds.
Previously, statutory sick pay was payable only from day 4 of the employee’s absence until Prime Minister Johnson’s announcement in the House of Commons on Tuesday 3 March 2020.
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the opposition Labour Party, immediately asked the PM if zero hours workers and self-employed individuals would have this benefit extended to them. The PM’s response to Mr Corbyn’s question will have disappointed many of these individuals. No entitlement to statutory sick pay for them. The problem for these individuals is that they do not meet the eligibility threshold where they earn £118 per week (the Lower Earnings Limit).
There is also the small fact that employment status (which is linked to entitlement to sick pay) is defined by the Employment Rights Act 1996. Section 230 of the Act defines an employee as an individual who has a contract of service. Many employment rights flow from this status and this means that many individuals who are engaged on a contract for services will simply not be eligible to claim statutory sick pay.
A link to an article in The Mirror newspaper about the exchanges in the House of Commons between PM Johnson and Mr Corbyn about SSP entitlement can be found below:
… and yet, the UK Government’s thinking on this issue may be quickly evolving. On the BBC’s Question Time television programme broadcast on Thursday 5 March 2020, Matt Hancock MP, the UK Health Secretary said that people on zero hours contracts and self-employed persons should not be financially penalised for doing the right thing i.e. self-isolating themselves or being honest about having the virus.
It will be interesting to see how the story develops and what changes to UK employment law may follow as a result.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) isn’t just a potential threat to your health; it could also mean that your earnings take a hit.
How so?
If you have to take time off from work (i.e. self-isolate yourself) because you have (or might have) been infected by the virus, will you be entitled to receive sick pay from the organisation that you are working for?
It depends very much on your employment status …
… if you are a zero hours worker or genuinely a self-employed person, the answer is an emphatic no.
If you are deemed to be an employee (an individual who works under a contract of service) within the meaning of Section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, you may be fortunate in that you have an entitlement to receive either contractual sick pay or statutory sick pay.
Contractual sick pay
If a contractual sick pay scheme applies to your employment, you might receive, at its fullest extent, 6 months full pay and then 6 months at half pay. This generous arrangement, of course, will not apply from day 1 of the employment and employees will have to build up their continuous service in order to be eligible for the maximum level of contractual sick pay. It is probably the case that an employee with just over a year’s service would receive 1 month at full pay for sickness absence and then 1 month at half pay.
An example of entitlement to contractual sick pay arrangements taken from the Collective Agreement (the National Working Practices Agreement) between Scottish Further Education lecturers and their employers can be seen below:
Statutory sick pay
What about statutory sick pay or SSP? This is relevant in situations where employees are not entitled to receive contractual sick pay.
It’s also worth pointing out that contractual sick pay is often much more generous than SSP and, even then, not all employees will be entitled to receive this benefit because they fall outside the eligibility criteria. The current weekly rate of sickness pay (in March 2020) is £98.25 and could be paid by employers for a maximum of 28 weeks.
Ordinarily, it becomes payable only from 4th day of sickness absence, but as of Wednesday 4th March 2020, the UK Government has announced that employees who self-isolate themselves because of suspected Coronavirus infection, will be paid SSP from day 1 of their sickness absence.
This is a temporary measure which will apply only for the duration of the current COVID-19 emergency, but people who are off sick with a medical condition other than the virus will also be entitled to benefit from these changes.
See links below to articles on the BBC website about sickness pay entitlement and COVID-19:
The change in Government policy will not be extended to the self-employed; and to zero hours workers (who will not be able to meet the threshold conditions for eligibility). Frances O’Grady, the General Secretary of the UK’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) has stated that as many as 2 million workers may not be eligible for SSP under the current system.
There has been some concern expressed that individuals in these categories may continue to go to work – if they have the virus or suspect as much – because they will not receive SSP during their absence.
Eligibility criteria for SSP
In 2019-20, in order to qualify for SSP you must be an employee earning at least £118 per week or £512 per month (before tax). This is known as the Lower Earnings Limit.
In April 2020, SSP will rise to £95.85 per week, but individuals’ earnings must fall within any of the following bands in order to qualify:
£120 per week
£520 per month
£6,240 per year
Again, this will mean that many zero hours contract workers will simply fail to qualify for SSP payments.
More problems …
There is also another complication concerning eligibility for sickness pay which the COVID-19 outbreak has raised:
Let’s assume that you do qualify for either contractual sick pay or SSP, but you have decided to take the precautionary measure of self-isolation so as not to expose your colleagues to potential risk.
It may be that you have recently returned from a destination such as China or Italy where the virus has been particularly prevalent and you decide to play it safe by not going into work. You contact your HR Department or employer to inform them of your decision; you are thanked for being extremely considerate and responsible; and then you are told that you are not entitled to receive sick pay because you haven’t actually been diagnosed with the virus.
Matt Hancock MP, UK Government Minister for Health, thinks that current legislation does cover such situations and individuals who take precautionary measures, as outlined above, should benefit from sick pay provisions.
With all due respect to Mr Hancock, what he thinks and what current legislation or a contract of employment states might be entirely different realities. That said, Mr Hancock does have the support of the highly regarded Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) which is recommending that employers pay self-isolating employees who have taken such a precautionary measure (see link below).
Clearly, COVID-19 is presenting a number of challenges to traditional practices or orthodoxies in the field of employment law. This is a serious issue given that recent estimates are predicting that up to 20% of the UK workforce could be in danger of contracting the virus and, consequently, they will be absent from work.
In some respects, the UK Government has been caught napping on the issue of extending employment protection e.g. entitlement to sick pay to people who do not have a contract of service and the COVID-19 outbreak has really exposed this shortcoming.
As Jonathan Rennie of law firm, TLT, had noted (as recently as this week) the UK Government has failed to implement any of the recommendations of the Taylor Review which favoured extended employment protection to workers who did not have a contract of service. It is somewhat ironic that the virus outbreak has forced the Government to break cover and extend some employment protection rights.
A link to an article on the BBC website about the predicted impact of COVID-19 on the UK workforce can be found below:
In Chapter 2 of Introductory Scots Law, I discuss termination of contractual agreements. One way in which a contract can come to an end – albeit in rather an abrupt or unexpected manner – will be when the agreement is said to be frustrated.
Frustration will often arise when unexpected events intervene. Since the formation of the contract, the circumstances surrounding the agreement may have changed dramatically. The contract may now be impossible to perform or the contract may have been rendered illegal by changes in the law.
Physical destruction of the subject-matter of the contract operates to frustrate the agreement (see Taylor v Caldwell (1863) EWHC QB J1 and Vitol SA v Esso Australia (1988) The Times, 1 February1988).
Frustration as a practical issue came to mind a few months ago, when I was teaching contract law to two groups of students. Some of the more switched on members of the classes highlighted a story which had received a lot of media coverage.
This story involved the sale of a painting (Girl with Balloon) by the artist known as Banksy. In October 2018, the item was being auctioned at Sotheby’s in London. The successful bidder agreed to pay £860,000 – quite a coup for Sotheby’s. Unfortunately, for the bidder, the artist had other ideas. The frame contained a hidden device which partially shredded the painting.
Would the contract have been capable of enforcement or was this an example of frustration my students wanted to know?
Banksy’s painting is a unique item i.e. it cannot be replaced with a similar item. Arguably, the bidder would have been entitled to use frustration as a means of withdrawing from the agreement. Clearly, the circumstances of the painting being partially destroyed made performance of the contract very different from that which the bidder originally anticipated.
Imagine, for instance, if two parties had agreed terms concerning the sale of a vintage car. What if the car was stolen before it could be delivered to the buyer? It is later found by the Police on waste ground, completely burnt out by the thieves/vandals. Would the buyer really consider herself to be bound by the terms of the agreement concluded with the seller or would it be reasonable to assume that the contract was terminated due to frustration?
Risk
This area of the law of contract involves risk. The issue of risk relates to any harm or damage caused to the goods and, more importantly, who will have to bear the loss should this happen i.e. the seller or the buyer?
In Chapter 4 of Introductory Scots Law, I discuss the implications for transactions involving the sale of physical/corporeal property and the application of risk.
The question to ask is what kind of category of sale does the transaction fall under?
Consumer sale (B2C)?
Business to business sale (B2B)?
A sale between two private individuals (C2C)?
Section 29 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 now addresses the issue of risk in relation to consumer contracts of sale before and after the physical possession of the goods has been transferred to the buyer (i.e. delivery has taken place). This is an area of the law which has been much simplified over the years in relation to consumer contracts for the sale of goods (the same cannot be said of business to business contracts of sale). The basic rule is that risk will lie with the trader until such time as s/he is able to transfer physical possession of the goods to the consumer or someone identified by her to take possession of the goods.
Presuming that sale of the vehicle was a consumer transaction, I think most reasonable people would opt for frustration of contract in this situation. Presumably, the seller of the car (the trader) has an insurance policy in place to cover such eventualities as theft and destruction.
In business to business sales and private sales, risk will pass from the seller to the buyer when the parties intend that it should pass or depending upon the classification of the goods (as per Section 18 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 with its 5 rules).
In the strange environment of the international art world, the semi-destroyed Banksy painting became even more valuable and the bidder was happy to pay the purchase price. This, however, is not normal behaviour for most ordinary people.
Football: it’s a funny old game
On a more tragic note, the issue of possible frustration of contract rose once more in relation to the death of the Argentinian footballer, Emiliano Sala who had completed a transfer agreement to leave the French club, FC Nantes and go to Cardiff City, the English Premier League club.
Before he could play his first competitive game with his new club, Mr Sala was killed in a plane crash over the English Channel. This led to demands by Nantes for payment of the first part of the transfer fee of £15 million from Cardiff City FC.
Such a contract i.e. for personal services could conceivably be discharged by the death of the person who was to perform it. Additionally, the incapacity of a person who is to perform a personal contract may discharge it. However, temporary incapacity is not enough unless it affects the performance of the contract in a really serious way. If an employee is killed or permanently incapacitated, it may be very difficult to argue that the employment contract should be allowed to continue.
Sadly, in the Sala tragedy, it looks as if the lawyers will be the only winners here.
Links to media stories about the Sala dispute can be accessed below:
Nantes demand first slice of £15m Emiliano Sala fee from Cardiff
Frustration can only be used to have the contract discharged in situations where neither party is to blame. When one party is to blame for the failure to perform his obligations under the agreement, this represents a breach of contract and the innocent party can raise the appropriate action.
Seán Crossan's Scots Law 