Court orders that gig economy operatives are ‘workers’
The Court of Appeal has handed down its judgment in Pimlico Plumbers & Charlie Mullins v Smith with the outcome being that the plumbers are workers and not self-employed contractors.
Mr Smith worked a minimum of 40 hours a week, had to wear a company uniform and drive Pimlico Plumber’s vehicles. The ruling means that Pimlico workers will be entitled to basic rights including minimum wage and holiday pay.
The gig economy is characterised by freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs so that, instead of a regular wage, workers get paid for the “gigs” they do. The BBC has today estimated that five million people are employed in this type of capacity in the UK.
The Court of Appeal referred to the characteristics of the gig economy business model, where 
operatives appear to clients as working for the business providing the services but at the same time the business maintains a legal relationship of independent contractor rather than employee or worker.
One of the issues that was addressed in this case was the right of an operative to provide a substitute to undertake the services. An employee or worker will, other than in very limited circumstances, be required to provide personal service, whereas it will be consistent with self-employed or independent contractor status to be able to
subcontract the service obligations. The Court of Appeal summarised the applicable principles for the personal service aspect of the employment status test and said that if a right to substitute is agreed, it is not necessarily inconsistent with personal service. Much will depend on any undertaking that is provided in respect of personal service, whether the right to substitute is conditional (and what those conditions are), the circumstances when a substitute is permitted and whether the right to substitute is only permitted with consent.
The case is fact sensitive but the pendulum is clearly swinging in one direction based on a number of recent cases involving gig economy workers
