The Employment Tribunal has ruled that pantomime performers are workers. This means that the Claimants (and perhaps others in similar situations) are entitled to holiday pay from their employer.
Dan Leno as Widow Twankey in "Aladdin" at the Drury Lane Theatre, 1896. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Legal Issue: Limb “b” Workers To get technical on what happened, we need to look at what the legal issue was. The legal issue considered in this case was: are the Claimants ‘limb “b” workers’? ‘Limb “b” worker’ refers to section 230(3) subsection (b) (or limb “b”) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (the Act). The Act says: ’In this Act ‘worker…means an individual who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased worked under) 1. 2.
a contract of employment, or
any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual.’ Therefore, in definition if the Claimants were workers the main focus was on the client/customer categorisation of the employer. If Crossroads is a client or a customer receiving services from the Claimants, the Claimants would be self-employed and not workers. The relationship would be on a 2
