Am I the employer? Or the Customer? (Joe90)

[joe-90]

It's all to do with Contract Law.

Yes, contract law is exactly what it is... not employment law. One employs an employee, one engages a contractor (or "contracts" a contractor, if one must use the American parlance).

When you get a plumber round and say "Mr Plumber, your finest boiler if you please sir, installed forthwith on yonder kitchen wall!", assuming he wants the work he will most likely issue you with a quote. It is also possible that you may issue you with a price, but I'm sure I'd only be teaching Joe to suck eggs if I explained the difference in contract law terms...

If you then give him the go-ahead and he counters by accepting your go-ahead, at that moment you (the householder) have let a contract onto the contractor (the plumber, or his firm, or another firm that he may be the legal agent of).

At an agreed point he will invoice you for the labour and other costs (major equipment, sundries etc). This is perhaps a crucial illustration of why he is a contractor and NOT an employee. An employee does NOT invoice an employer for labour. Submitting a timesheet or clocking in and out does not constitute invoicing, btw.

1) You do not "employ" a contractor, however you may "engage" a contractor.
2) You have contracted for a specific task or tasks, bounded by a statement of work, whereas employment is an ongoing activity which is usually unbounded by the employment contract, and in practice is unbounded except by what would be lawful and considered reasonable by tribunal.

If you believe you are in fact employing the guy, perhaps you should consider the TUPE implications when you take on his employment. Once he has serviced your boiler, how do you intend to keep him in gainful employment? Servicing your car?

For Health and Safety purposes he is my employee, I owe him a duty of care and must supply him with the right ladders. I can hire him on a day rate. I can fire him at will. If I employ him long enough (supposing I lived in a stately home) the Tax Man will say he is an employee. So in essence - he IS an employee.

 

[Tibbot]

As has been told, HSAW act 1974 covers everyone in any work space. Employment status doesn't come into it. You can either quit now (it's another subject you've demonstrated knowing nothing about) or carry on making a bigger idiot of yourself with each additional post.

 

[onlyfitidealboilers]

who is really arsed anyway, let it go joe you lost

 

[cumbriahandyman]

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee.

An employee may be defined as: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed.

Anyone I work for who tried to tell me how to perform the work I do would soon get told to go away in short sharp jerky movements.

They have the right to tell me what they want doing, but not how to do it.

Joe, I think you should return to you village, I think they might be missing their idiot.