[scott_w]

0-hour contracts have nothing to do with "Uberised" working arrangements, which are essentially a contracted worker. In a 0-hour contract, the worker does not have the freedom to "offer labour without commitment."

- They have an employment contract, so are an employee, not a self-employed contractor.

- There are limitations on who else they could work for.

- In practice, if they're called up to work last-minute, they can't say "no."

For most 0-hour contracts, like retail, trying to setup your employees as self-employed contractors doesn't work because it's a blatant violation of the law. HMRC will come after you for employer's NI as you have disguised employees.

Uber is a very different model because the way they setup the working arrangements allows them to keep taxi drivers outside the scope of disguised employees.

[nickdothutton]

Non-compete or any kind of limitation on who a zero hours contract person can work for, has been specifically and explicitly illegal since 2016 in the UK. In practice it has been unenforceable since more or less forever. [1]

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/zero-hours-contra... (last para.)

[scott_w]

Thanks for the info. I left retail work in 2011, when I definitely did have it in my contract, so things have changed a little bit since then.

[varispeed]

> as you have disguised employees.

That's such a classist term. Surely little working class person cannot have its own business, it's disguised employment! It's like micro agency with resource of 1. But somehow we don't say agencies run "disguised employment", because the profits are going to the rich shareholders instead of filthy unwashed pleb.

[scott_w]

What on earth are you waffling on about?

Disguised employee is the term used when a person fits into the legal definition of an employee but are contracted, as opposed to being employed. HMRC sets out the conditions it uses to determine this for tax purposes, which you can find on their website.

> But somehow we don't say agencies run "disguised employment",

No, they're not "disguised employment" because the contract terms and working conditions differ to that of an employment contract. It's nothing to do with class.

Plumbers, electricians and joiners will typically run self-employed or private limited companies for their work. We don't call them disguised employees because they're not, they're independent contractors. Because "disguised employee" is nothing to do with class.

[varispeed]

It is classist.

The rule set was sharpened the moment skilled workers realised the agency / consultancy was charging £2k a day for their labour while paying them £60k a year, and decided to leave on Friday and invoice on Monday. Same desk. Same client. Same work. The only difference was that the margin stayed with the person producing the value instead of flowing to partners and shareholders.

That is when it became “disguised employment”.

When a multinational intermediary inserts itself and captures the spread, that is respectable commerce. When a one-person company does the same and keeps the surplus, it is suddenly suspicious and requires a special anti-avoidance regime.

You can hide behind control tests and contractual nuances, but the economic reality is identical. The variable that changes is who captures profit.

If a rule only becomes urgent when labour tries to behave like capital, that is not some sterile legal tidying exercise. That is class politics dressed up as “compliance”.

[scott_w]

> The rule set was sharpened the moment skilled workers realised the agency / consultancy was charging £2k a day for their labour while paying them £60k a year, and decided to leave on Friday and invoice on Monday. Same desk. Same client. Same work. The only difference was that the margin stayed with the person producing the value instead of flowing to partners and shareholders.

Right, so you're talking about IR35 specifically. This has nothing to do with "Uberisation" at all because the working arrangement and contract structure are completely different. It's also got fuck all to do with "classism" because it's 100% about tax.

First off, IR35 does not apply to self-employed workers, it only applies to a worker contracting via a limited company.

Second, it looks at how many "clients" you have. A limited company of 1 contracting to multiple clients is outside the scope of IR35 because, like your plumber, they are a business and not an employee trying to reduce the amount of tax they pay.

Thirdly, IR35 companies are allowed but they must operate in a specific way (that makes them not worth the hassle for the most part).

> That is class politics dressed up as “compliance”.

No, it's just about tax law.

I don't know why you needed to write 6 paragraphs when a simple "I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about" would have been much quicker for you to write and for me to read.

[varispeed]

> First off, IR35 does not apply to self-employed workers, it only applies to a worker contracting via a limited company.

You are using class-loaded language. Nobody says a worker is “operating via” a Big Four consultancy, but when it is a one-person company, suddenly it is framed as some artificial wrapper.

It is a recognised form of self-employment under UK law, where a person runs their own company to contract for work in their own right, on the same legal footing as any other incorporated business.

And IR35 is not confined to one-person outfits either. Its scope extends beyond the caricature of a lone contractor “gaming” the system.

IR35 is not determined by how many clients you have. It is driven by the ownership structure of the company providing the services. The legislation applies where the individual delivering the work has a material interest in that company, typically 5% or more.

> Thirdly, IR35 companies are allowed but they must operate in a specific way (that makes them not worth the hassle for the most part).

It amounts to saying you are free to run your own company, right up to the point where doing so allows you to retain the full commercial value of your labour rather than routing it through an approved intermediary.

Those restrictions are designed around companies owned by the worker delivering the service. The same structural suspicion is not applied to firms owned by external shareholders supplying labour in similar conditions.

When the rule set specifically constrains worker-owned businesses while leaving non-worker-owned ones operating freely, that is not accidental. It is a deliberate design choice that limits upward social mobility.

It is also not accurate to say IR35 has nothing to do with wider labour trends, because tax rules shape how work is structured in practice; many gig and platform workers are required to set up limited companies, and once labour is channelled into that model, the IR35 framework directly affects them, so drawing a hard line between “tax” and “Uberisation” ignores how policy design influences the real-world organisation of work.

[scott_w]

> You are using class-loaded language. Nobody says a worker is “operating via” a Big Four consultancy, but when it is a one-person company, suddenly it is framed as some artificial wrapper.

This is not classist, you're conflating 2 very different things.

A one-person company who consults for multiple clients, provides their own equipment and sets their own working hours (I have literally worked with people like this) do not fall into IR35. Whether they speak in RP, Cockney, Geordie or Scouse has no bearing on this. How much money they earn has no bearing on whether they fall into the scope of IR35.

> IR35 is not determined by how many clients you have. It is driven by the ownership structure of the company providing the services. The legislation applies where the individual delivering the work has a material interest in that company, typically 5% or more.

This is only part of it. Other criteria include right of substitution, ability to set working hours and location. Clearly a consultancy firm that provides services by multiple workers for multiple clients is very different from an individual who:

- Provides services to one client for 4 years

- Has to (in your own words) sit at the same desk as an employee

- Has to follow set hours

- Has to use equipment provided by the client

- Cannot ask another person to take over their work.

When the facts are different, the rules that are applied are different.

> Those restrictions are designed around companies owned by the worker delivering the service. The same structural suspicion is not applied to firms owned by external shareholders supplying labour in similar conditions.

Because they're two completely different types of contract and working arrangements.

> It is also not accurate to say IR35 has nothing to do with wider labour trends, because tax rules shape how work is structured in practice

I didn't say that they don't. Law and working arrangements obviously feed back into each other, it's the reason IR35 came about in the first place.

> many gig and platform workers are required to set up limited companies, and once labour is channelled into that model, the IR35 framework directly affects them, so drawing a hard line between “tax” and “Uberisation”

They're two different topics that sometimes have overlap, depending on the nature of the working arrangements.