A job’s worth

Recent cases have clarified some of the issues affecting part-time workers and employment status in general within education, with ramifications for the independent schools sector, writes Katy Wedderburn

By law, part-time workers must be treated in the same way as comparable full-time workers. A comparable full-time worker is one who works for the same employer and does similar work under the same type of contract. Part-time workers have the same rights and benefits – in proportion to the hours they work – as comparable full-time staff, unless the difference can be justified on objective grounds.

The types of rights and benefits covered include:
• rates of pay;
• entitlement to pension schemes and benefits;
• access to training and career development;
• holiday entitlement;
• rights to career breaks;
• contractual sick pay, contractual maternity and parental leave and pay rights as offered to full-time staff; and
• treatment when selecting candidates for promotion, and for redundancy.

Part benefits?
If benefits cannot be easily divided, employers must decide whether to withhold them from part-time workers.
However, they must also show that the decision is justified on objective grounds. In the case of Adams v East Antrim
Institute of Further and Higher Education, a recent employment tribunal, Ms Adams was employed as an associate lecturer at the East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education, working part-time, for 12 hours per week.

All lecturers employed by the college were required to study for a teaching qualification known as the PGCFHE as a mandatory requirement under their contract of employment. While the college allowed full-time lecturers to have a three-hour reduction in their teaching commitments to enable them to study, part-time workers were given a smaller reduction despite the fact that all staff had to undertake the same course and complete all course work to the same standard.

Adams presented an application to the employment tribunal claiming that she was being discriminated against as a part-time worker.

Fair treatment
The tribunal considered the provisions of the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations. It was clear to the tribunal that the aim of the regulations is to ensure that part-time workers are not
treated any less favourably than full-time workers and to reflect the importance of taking up education and training
opportunities to improve the skills of part-time workers, thereby enhancing career and occupational mobility. In the tribunal’s view, the college could not justify the difference in treatment between full-time and part-time staff. This meant that the college was held to have discriminated against Adams and was ordered to pay compensation based on the costs of the time denied to her.

Employment status
This is an area of increasing dispute, particularly in relation to “temporary” staff. In another recent employment
tribunal case, an hourly-paid lecturer at the University of Sheffield, Ms Carl, worked as a tutor in shorthand typing.
Her contract described her as a self-employed “contractor” and specifically stated that nothing contained in the
contract would have the effect of creating a relationship of employer and employee. Nevertheless, an employment
tribunal decided that she was an employee and was therefore entitled to pension and holiday rights.

In reaching its conclusion, the tribunal directed itself to the facts of the case rather than the label that Carl had been given. Carl’s right to use the university car park, her inclusion in the university handbook, the payment of her expenses and sick leave and her use of the grievance procedure were all factors pointing to her having employee status rather than someone conducting her own business. Carl did, however, lose the second round of her case against the university as, although she was found to be an employee, her claim that she had been treated less favourably on pay compared to full-time workers was dismissed.

Katy Wedderburn is a partner in MacRoberts LLP and is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in employment law.

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