Zero-hours contract workers

Only employees are entitled to claim unfair dismissal or redundancy pay and two years’ continuous service is needed to qualify for a redundancy payment and to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. The use of zero-hours contracts has risen sharply across all parts of the economy, although the increase in some sectors is more marked than others. These are contracts under which an employee is not guaranteed any hours, and is only paid for hours actually worked.

However, it is important to remember that the term “zero-hours worker” is a label with no legal status. Whether a zero-hours contract worker is an employee will depend on an examination of all the facts and the surrounding context, including the parties’ inequality of bargaining power. Tribunals will apply established tests based on three core elements: mutuality — the obligation to do at least some work in return for wages, the obligation to do work personally and the employer’s right of control.

In Pulse Healthcare Limited v Carewatch Care Services Limited & Others [2012] UKEAT 0123/12/2007, the EAT examined the surrounding facts and decided that a group of careworkers on zero-hours contracts were employees on global contracts of employment with several years’ continuous service. Employees with zero-hours contract documentation should retain any evidence (such as pay slips) that proves what hours they have worked and for how long. LRD’s booklet, Employment contracts, published in 2013, explains how the rules on employment status are likely to apply to zero-hours contract workers

Some employees with this kind of contract may be able to use the statutory rules governing continuity of employment (sections 210 to 219 of ERA 96) to bridge gaps between successive contracts of employment.