Part-time and Atypical Workers

Traditionally, employment protection legislation has been geared towards individuals with stable, regular full-time jobs working for a single employer under an open-ended contract of employment. However, working patterns and norms have changed and continue to change. The last two decades have seen a marked increase in the number of individuals whose working arrangements are ‘atypical’, in that they fall outside the traditional model, and new types of working arrangement are constantly emerging.

However, Many central employment rights have been confined to individuals with traditional working arrangements. Thus, the changes in working patterns have left many workers outside the scope of the employment protection legislation – a problem which has been recognised and addressed at both European and national level. In addition to the legislative changes, case law – both European and domestic – has highlighted the fact that many of those with ‘non-traditional’ working arrangements are women, with the result that laws giving such workers inferior rights have been held to be discriminatory. Some of these cases have since resulted in major legal reform.

The aim of this Supplement is to examine the legal position of those whose working arrangements fall outside the traditional mould. This large and highly diverse group of workers has commonly been regarded as ‘atypical’ or ‘non- standard’. However, there is no universally accepted definition of the term ‘atypical’ and it is an inaccurate description in the light of the growth in this type of employment.

Types of workers considered in this Supplement include the self-employed, temporary workers, freelancers, agency workers, homeworkers, subcontractors, part-timers and job sharers, casual and seasonal workers, fixed-term and contract workers. The first two chapters of this Supplement examine the two main obstacles preventing many atypical workers from benefiting from employment protection legislation: employment status and continuity of service.

It considers how the terms ‘employee’ and ‘worker’ are defined by legislation and by case law and sets out the rules relating to continuity, highlighting the provisions which may be of particular relevance to atypical workers. The final six chapters of the Supplement look at individual categories of atypical worker, including part-time workers, agency workers, casual workers, fixed-term contract workers and homeworkers and discuss the legislation and cases which are of particular relevance to each category.

This Supplement was published in January 2001.