In his first brief of 2019, Ian Smith (not pictured) revisits the gig economy & reflects on the old days
- Uber drivers remain ‘workers’; Deliveroo riders, not ‘workers’.
- Effect of short time working on calculating statutory holiday pay.
- Applying the justification defence in age discrimination law.
Shortly before the Christmas break, the government announced its intention to adopt most of the recommendations of the Taylor review of modern working practices and published three sets of regulations making a start on this process, though with the important caveat that they are not to come into force until April 2020. Along with specific measures in these regulations it is proposed to seek to bring more clarity to the definitions of ‘employee’, ‘worker’ (or ‘dependent contractor’) and ‘self employed’. What river will be diverted to clean out these particular employment law Augean stables remains to be seen. In the meantime, the first two cases considered here show how advantageous any progress here would be. In the third case, the Court of Justice of the
