(1) Mr L Bailey (2) Mr I Bainsal v Capital Contractors Limited — 2023

Mr L Bailey and Mr I Bainsal brought claims under section 13 Employment Rights Act 1996 for unpaid wages said to be due for work carried out in March 2022. Mr Bailey said he worked 4.5 days between 8 and 15 March 2022 and claimed £900, while Mr Bainsal said he worked 5 days between 9 and 15 March 2022 and claimed £1,000, both subject to a 20% CIS deduction. The respondent did not dispute the amounts claimed, but said it had not paid because it considered the work poor and had to engage others to rectify it. The tribunal noted there was no counterclaim before it for the alleged rectification costs.

The central issue was employment status. The claimants did not contend that they had contracts of employment, so the tribunal considered whether they were workers under section 230(3)(b) ERA 1996. The evidence showed that the work arrangements were intended to start on a daily rate and, if the claimants had stayed, would have moved to price work within a short period. The tribunal also relied on the fact that both claimants were registered under the CIS scheme and accepted that their pay would be subject to a 20% CIS deduction.

The tribunal accepted Mr Jones' evidence that the respondent treated all contractors on site as self-employed. It found that there was no obligation on the claimants to accept work and no obligation on the respondent to offer it. On the facts, the tribunal held that the claimants were operating their own individual businesses and that the respondent was a client of those businesses, so they fell outside the definition of worker in section 230(3)(b). The tribunal therefore did not need to resolve the dispute about alleged damage to the work.

Because neither claimant was a worker, both unlawful deduction claims failed and were dismissed.