Employment Rights

The particular status of an individual will determine what level of employment rights they have.  All employment rights apply to employees while sole traders / self employed / sch D only have limited employment rights (although they have slightly more rights if they are regarded as having ‘worker’ status).

In relation to loan-out agreements, the individual will generally be an employee of their personal service company.   This means that they may be entitled to a full suite of employment rights but the engaging production entity is not responsible for providing these – that responsibility lies with the personal service company.

The key rights to be aware of in respect of employees and freelancers are set out below:

Employee:

  • holiday pay;
  • work place pension;
  • statutory sick pay;
  • national minimum wage
  • 48 hour working week and rest breaks;
  • maternity / paternity / adoption leave and pay;
  • health and safety protection;
  • discrimination protection – race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation and age;
  • right to be automatically enrolled in qualifying pension scheme and receive employer pension contributions once auto-enrolment applies to organisation;
  • right not to be unfairly dismissed; and
  • redundancy pay (after 2 years’ service).

Self-employed ‘worker’:

  • holiday pay;
  • work place pension;
  • 48 hour working week and rest breaks;
  • health and safety protection;
  • discrimination protection – race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation and age; and
  • right to be automatically enrolled in qualifying pension scheme and receive employer pension contributions once auto-enrolment applies to organisation.

Self-employed ‘freelancer’:

  • health and safety protection; and
  • discrimination protection – race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation and age.