Advice regarding false self employment

nientay

Hi, I just signed up to see if anybody had any advice regarding my employment status or had been in a similar situation before. I have become more and more hacked off as time has gone on and I am trying to figure out if anything can be done to improve my situation.

A bit of background;
I am registered as Self Employed and pay my own tax and NI contributions, I work as part of two teams of four and we all work like this, however we are provided work by our boss who's LTD company is sub contracted to provide agricultural services. We are basically employed by this company however as we are self employed we are not entitled to any employee rights such as paid holidays or contracted hours, a situation which he takes full advantage of. He even gets annoyed when guys don't give him reasonable notice!

The thing that really bugs me about it is he expects us to be available to work all the time if we are at home, if we haven't told him we are going on holiday he expects us to work and puts you in a position where you can't say no (4 man team is a legal requirement). Often we are told late at night on a Friday that we are needed to work all weekend, even if it is cancelled he wont tell us so you are constantly checking your phone to see if there is work on etc etc. Trust me it doesn't sound so bad but it feels like I am trapped sometimes. I live in a small community and the job is really convenient for me, my colleagues are great and it is rewarding but we are getting taken advantage of and it does get me upset sometimes, not to mention angry! I should to be able to say to him 'well I am self employed so I can work when I want' but I am very worried about him just replacing me with somebody else, he has a constant stream of people willing to work.

As I understand it's perfectly legal for him to do this however morally suspect?
Any information would be great,
Thanks

ohreally

http://tools.hmrc.gov.uk/esi/screen/ESI/en-GB/summary?user=guest

https://join.unitetheunion.org/unite-wrap-join/workflows/MEMBER.INDIVIDUAL.JOIN (other organisations are available).

getmore4less

Can you all get together and bypass the "employer"

nientay

Hi, thanks for quick replies!

Regarding joining a union, is this possible given that I am self employed? I just assumed that unions were for employed workforces. Also as I have no working contract I would be quite worried of losing my job if I start kicking up a fuss and getting a union involved.

We have got together to try and improve things in the past year, it's difficult as we don't see our boss very often, he usually contacts us through text message. He has made a few small changes but nothing significant. It would require a substantial amount of set up cash to start a rival business, trust me we have been thinking about it but it is a very big step and quite a risky one.

Sharon87

Yes you can join a union. I work in TV where a lot of people are self employed and there are unions out there for that. It's probably more important to be in a union if you're self employed to be honest!

Maybe setting up a rival business is good, check your contract though, some contracts can say you can't work for/have rival business within a time of leaving the employment, so check that first.

I definitely wouldn't put up with it, if you can work somewhere else, or for yourself I would try this, just build up some savings first in case it doesn't pan out.