Building workers win holiday rights

Building workers have recently won an important victory in a tribunal claim for the right to paid holidays.

Supported by the construction union UCATT, they successfully argued that, despite being classed as self-employed by their employers, there was enough of a contractual relationship between the parties to show that they were "workers". This meant that they came within the protection of the working time regulations, in particular those laying down entitlement to the basic 20 days' paid holidays.

At a recent Employment Appeal Tribunal the judge said that their contracts clearly required them "to personally perform services" and this meant that they were "workers". Their employers' contentions that they were not, because the contracts said that they could in certain circumstances provide substitutes when unable to work, were rejected. The judge said that the "limited power for substitutes was not inconsistent with worker status".

Dominic Hehir, regional officer of the union describes the ruling as "highly significant" and says that it will affect "many workers in the industry" whose employers should have given them holidays when the law came into force in 1998.

* (Byrne Bros v Baird and others EAT/0542/01)