Man Who Worked for Membership Association Was an Employee

The Employment Tribunal (ET) has ruled that a man who worked for a membership association which acted on behalf of free-range egg producers was an employee rather than a self-employed contractor.

The man began working for the association in 2011 as Policy Director, going on to become Chief Executive in 2016. He was required to work a set number of days per week and invoiced the association monthly for the work he had performed, plus travel and accommodation expenses.

In March 2023 he was given 12 months’ notice as required under his contract. After being informed in April 2024 that he would not be offered a new contract, he brought ET claims including unfair and wrongful dismissal, unauthorised deduction from wages and unpaid holiday. The association contended that he was self-employed, not an employee or worker, so the ET considered his employment status as a preliminary issue.

The ET observed that the man’s contract guaranteed him a fixed monthly sum. There was an obligation to pay those sums and the association had paid them for more than 12 and a half years. In return he was required to undertake various tasks in each of his roles. There was no general substitution clause and he had never provided a substitute at his own expense: his work had only ever been covered by other officers of the association. There was nothing to suggest that he had the absolute freedom to decline work and he had never in fact done so. The ET concluded that there was mutuality of obligation and personal service.

The man had had a great deal of autonomy and discretion with regard to how and when he did his work. However, while he had day-to-day control over how he achieved outcomes, those outcomes were set by the association’s council. Although he had, at various times, sought to negotiate more preferential contractual terms, the power to decide the outcome of those negotiations lay with the council and was not in any way determined by him. The ET found that the level of control he was subject to was consistent with an employment relationship.

Considering whether other provisions of his contract were consistent with a contract of service, the ET accepted his evidence that there was, from the beginning of his appointment, an expectation that he refer to himself as self-employed. The power imbalance between him and the association meant that he had little negotiating power in this respect. In the ET’s view, the nature and length of the engagement was a very weighty consideration. The fact that he was paid mileage and other expenses was more akin to an employment relationship because a genuinely self-employed person would ordinarily be expected to meet their own expenses. The reality was that there was an employment relationship between him and the association, and there existed a contract of service rather than a contract for services.