Mr Mark Baker and 119 others (see attached schedule) v Respondent — 2022

This was a preliminary hearing in a group of holiday pay claims brought by 120 postmasters against Post Office Limited. The single issue was whether the claimants were "workers" for the purposes of regulation 2(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998. The tribunal heard live evidence from 10 sample claimants, together with generic evidence about the post office branch network, the SPSO and Network Transformation contracts, and how branches were run in practice.

Applying the statutory language and the authorities including Uber BV v Aslam, Autoclenz v Belcher, Pimlico Plumbers, Ready Mixed Concrete and earlier Post Office cases including Wolstenholme, the tribunal found that the contracts and their operation did not require the claimants to perform the work personally. It accepted that many claimants did substantial back-office work themselves, but found that assistants and family members regularly carried out counter work, cash balancing, mail sorting and other branch tasks. The tribunal held that the Post Office’s approval and vetting of assistants, training requirements, security rules, opening hours and other controls did not make the arrangement one of personal service.

The tribunal also rejected the submission that the Post Office had an absolute veto over assistants or that the holiday substitution allowance, or the fact that some postmasters chose to do most of the work themselves, showed a contractual requirement for personal performance. It found that the allowance was linked to those who chose to provide significant personal service, not to a legal obligation to do so. Because it held there was no undertaking to do or perform work personally, the tribunal did not need to decide whether the Post Office was a client or customer of any claimant’s business. The preliminary issue was resolved against the claimants and the holiday pay claims were dismissed.