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16 May 2014 / Charles Pigott
Issue: 7606 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Hole in the floor

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Should all workers be extended the same floor of rights, asks Charles Pigott

Recent cases have shown that despite the steady growth in workers’ rights some significant gaps in protection remain.

These developments add force to calls for a coherent floor of rights for all individuals engaged in the labour market who are not running their own business.

Non-employee workers enjoy a far greater range of employment protection rights than they did 20 years ago. For the most part they have benefited from the significant extension of protection against discrimination and new legislation on working time, the national minimum wage and whistleblowing as well as a number of other measures. However, the increasing fluidity of the labour market continues to throw up examples of employment arrangements which leave the individual involved without any effective rights. Three diverse appeal cases provide recent illustrations of how this can happen.

Who is a worker?

Before moving on to the cases, a quick reminder of the definition of worker. In the key legislation, the basic requirement involves

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