Employment Status — The Right to Choose

Being able to match workforce to workload, and maintain a flexible compliant workforce is key to operating a successful construction firm — as is having the correct Employment Status and the right to choose how YOU work.

So let’s start with the last point first, and it really is a simple point of principle. Do you believe as an individual that it’s your right to choose to be either an employee, or to work on a self-employed basis, or are you happy for the Government to decide your Employment Status?

And, assuming a company operates lawfully and honestly, should the business have a choice in how it structures its own workforce, or is it the Government’s job to decide?

Two simple questions to be sure, but given the amount of (not least political) debate around the whole issue of Employment Status over many years, the answer will very much be a subjective view!

The EEBS Position

For the record, at EEBS we believe every person has the right to choose how they work, without being exploited; And every company is obliged to operate both lawfully and within the spirit of the law – but should absolutely be allowed to run its affairs however it sees fit – including the makeup of its workforce.

And that really is at the heart of the first two points. The Construction Industry is unique in the UK economy in having such a long established and ingrained model of self-employment, with its own specialist tax regime; HMRC’s construction industry scheme – the CIS. And the need to maintain a flexible workforce, in order to match a company’s workforce to its workload is simply reflective of the demands and pressures that all companies face within the construction industry in general, and the peaks and troughs of workload in particular.

For workers within the industry it’s the “quid pro quo” of being self-employed: Your take home pay will be at least 30% higher if you work on a self-employed basis compared to those who choose to be employees. Your side of the bargain is that you will be the first to go if there is no longer enough work – and you don’t have a right to recourse if you are between jobs.