My Daughter and Son attend a private nursery, my partner told me last night that the girls who work there have no employment contract or receive holidays with pay.

Is the above legal.

Bit of a dilema for me as it seems moraly wrong to me even if it is legal.

id be suspect if they are paying NI and income tax – and then id also be suspect about what other important things they are not doing .

not only that if the girls aint paying NI or income tax over a long period it could make life difficult later on

Employment contracts are implied in the absense of anything on paper. If they turn up for work and if they get paid then that itself implies contract and they will be covered by all the usual employment laws.

Of greater concern will be whether they have been CRB checked or not. If the nursery is pulling a fast one then you should be more concerned about your kids and not the people working there. Once you know you're kids are safe, then you can start worrying about the moral implications of exploitation.

trail_rat – Member

id be suspect if they are paying NI and income tax – and then id also be suspect about what other important things they are not doing .

not only that if the girls aint paying NI or income tax over a long period it could make life difficult later on

Maybe i haven't posed the question very well but as far as i'm aware the tax and NI contributions are all paid up, my question was wether it is legal to employ someone without a contract and not allow them paid leave.

Sorry mate – that came out wrong. As a parent I know I don't have to tell you to worry about your kids. Hope that you can forgive the insensitivity of that remark.

geetee1972 – Member

Sorry mate – that came out wrong. As a parent I know I don't have to tell you to worry about your kids. Hope that you can forgive the insensitivity of that remark.

My skin is thicker than to take offence at your reply my dilema is it doesn't sit well with me to employ people without paid holidays and being self employed all my working life employment law i have no knowledge of.

After 13 weeks if no contract is supplied then a social contract is implied which ensures that you receive minimum wage, 24 days holiday per year pro-rata, and legal rights such as appealing disciplinary decisions, the right to contest a change in working hours, conditions, locations etc…

So No it is not illegal to Not supply a contract.
Yes it is illegal to not give holidays!

Jay

I am not 100% sure about this but unless they are working less than 16 hours a week then they will be entitled to paid holiday even if they don't have a contract as the fact that the company is paying them means that the contract is implied. The less than 16 hours a week may have changed recently as well; it may be that everyone is now covered.

That they will almost certainly be covered by UK employment law doesn't mean that someone isn't trying to take advantage of them and if they are ignorant of the law, as maybe many overseas employees may be (I am thinking Polish and I speak as someone with Polish heritage), then that's not completely unlikely. You should definitely ask the nursery some searching and very challenging questions as again, the CRB issue would be top of my list.

Thankyou for the replies, they are UK citizens not that this as rightly pointed out should make any difference.