Review of practice for determining job status 'ongoing' after bogus self-employment case

The Karshan  judgment, otherwise known as the Domino’s Pizza case, saw the court declare that pizza delivery drivers must be treated as employees rather than self-employed contractors. File picture

A review of the State’s code of practice for determining employment status remains “ongoing” in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court judgment in favour of delivery drivers, according to the Workplace Relations Commission.

In an update to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the WRC said the Supreme Court decision last October, known as the Karshan judgment, had brought “welcome clarity” and “provides a decision-making framework to assist businesses to correctly classify workers between those who are employed or self-employed".

Karshan, otherwise known as the Domino’s Pizza case, saw the court declare that pizza delivery drivers must be treated as employees rather than self-employed contractors.

That case had been taken by Revenue against Karshan, leading to accusations of a different set of interpretations of employment status being used by the Department of Social Protection, which determines that status, and Revenue itself.

Last January, the head of Revenue, one of three bodies directly concerned with the processing of employment status along with the Department of Social Protection and the WRC, said that the Supreme Court ruling “doesn’t change the law”.

Niall Cody denied at the time that Revenue had been content to treat couriers as self-employed prior to Karshan. The same month, the head of Social Protection, secretary general John McKeon, had agreed before the PAC that the Karshan judgment does not automatically mean that people incorrectly treated as self-employed for social insurance purposes are entitled to full employment rights.

In its latest PAC update, the WRC acknowledged however that the three bodies have “re-commenced engagement” since Karshan to “consider the full implications of it”, in particular whether or not “any changes... may now be required to the joint code of practice”.

“The work of the interdepartmental working group on this matter is currently ongoing,” the WRC said.

The Supreme Court judgment was broadly seen as a landmark decision in terms of the eradication of bogus self-employment — where a worker doing the same work as a full employee is nevertheless classified as self-employed, thus not receiving the same statutory benefits as full-time colleagues.