Weekly issue 33

News in brief

According to statistics published recently by the Employment Tribunal Service for 2006/7, 15 per cent more cases were brought than the previous year.

Agent of change

There has been a lot of confusion in the courts recently as to whether agency workers are employees or not. This is an important issue because, under the Employment Rights Act 1996, employees have far more rights than workers.

Secret agent

Following an earlier decision of the Court of Appeal, it looked as though tribunals might imply more often that there were contracts between temporary workers and “end users”.