Rolanda: Okay, so we've had a lot of case law over the last few months, and sort of workers, employees. So somebody sent a question in this week, and it's probably worth clarifying:

"What are the rights of casual workers in comparison to permanent employees, or to employees."

Seamus: Well, not necessarily a surprising question, because I can understand why there is confusion, although there has been a lot of developments recently in relation to case law and everything else. But it is confusing on something simple for them to try to get understanding of. Essentially, I always look at, you know, people talk about casual workers. There's no definition in law of a casual worker, and it doesn't exist.

What I always say is, "There's three main types of employment status. You have a worker, you have an employee, or you have someone that is self-employed." And casual workers are generally known as workers rather than employees, and that doesn't mean that they don't have any rights, as sometimes people think, "Oh, they're just casual. We can hire, fire, willy-nilly, and do what we want," and that's not the scenario.

So a worker's any individual who works for an employer, whether that's under a contract of employment or any other contract where the individual undertakes to do, personally, any worker services. And usually you'll find, for these sorts of workers, that you'll have agency workers, short-term casual workers, or freelance workers.

Ultimately, somebody may come in as a casual worker where you say, "Look, listen, I'm not guaranteeing you any hours." Sort of, maybe, more of a familiar term might be to have bank staff, where we have a list of staff that we can contact if we need. Key thing for those staff is always that there's no obligation on the staff member to come in to work. And you can offer them the hours, but they don't necessarily have to take it.

If you were offering the hours and they're refusing, and they were an employee, depending on the terms of the contract, you could possibly look at some sort of disciplinary issue with that. But this idea of there being mutually exclusive terms in relation . . . So if a worker gets a call and isn't available for work, I can simply say, "No, I pass." For me, that's more akin to the idea of the sort of worker, casual worker.

Scott: That's mutuality of obligation, and the employee normally doesn't have to offer this. You've got a series of bank employees, and you need mutuality of obligation in order to have an employee status there, okay? But it can be the situation where . . . It happens often enough, and often enough. And it's only lip service that you can turn it down or that it won't be offered. Those people can blend in and become employees over time, and that's the difficulty.

Assuming that there are workers who, for one reason or another, become employees, or you have workers who never become employees, what's the difference of their rights? Because self-employed people generally don't have many rights at all, okay? They certainly don't against the employer, because they're not employed.

So, a plumber that comes in at your house doesn't have the rights to take a civil claim against you. He doesn't have an employment right, because you don't employ them. They work for themselves. But a worker would have most of the European rights, for instance?

Seamus: Absolutely. The bottom line is that it tends to be that the longer this idea of a casual worker is in the workforce and working, the chances are that there will become . . . the basis for an employee-employer relationship. So, it is something that you have to look at, probably, individually. It's something that if you are focusing on this idea of a worker, and zero hours in work, and things like that, that you're keeping an eye on them to say if this person is either a worker or an employee, so it's important to do that. Those are the main differences.

Scott: What would they get? Assuming employees have all the employee rights, okay, assuming they've got a year's service to get unfair dismissal and so on, two years for redundancy, what is it that an employee would get over and above a worker?

Seamus: Well, the employee gets the protection under the contract of employment, and the employee gets the ability to bring a claim for unfair dismissal after their 52-week period. Where the casual worker, the worker, doesn't have that right in respect of it. Also, other things, talking about like redundancy entitlement if they've been working for two years. But, not under a contract of employment, they wouldn't have an entitlement to redundancy.

But all the other things that we talk about, I mean, there's an entitlement to national minimum wage, to their rest breaks, paid holidays, and protection from unlawful deduction of wages. They get maternity-paternity adoption rights also, and protection against less favourable treatment if they took a PID claim. Also, that they can't be discriminated against in addition to that. All of those standard terms that we would think about are what the worker receives also.

The main distinction might be that the employee would get the likes of, maybe, statutory sick pay, and/or company sick pay if it's there, and they'll get maternity adoption, paternity leave, and they'll get pay for that as well. The right not to be unfairly dismissed is obviously the big one, and the redundancy. Those are the main distinctions between an employee and and a worker.

Scott: Those are the written terms and conditions of employment, the written particulars that you would get under the old '94 order is it?

Seamus: Yeah, and your legal entitlement as an employee, to obtain written terms and conditions of employment.

Scott: That may be changing in England, I think it is, in April, isn't it? They're giving the right of workers to get the terms.

Seamus: To get the terms and conditions of employment as well.

Scott: Okay. Next question, Rolanda?