Paid 'volunteer' not covered by discrimination law
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has upheld a tribunal's decision that a paid volunteer instructor of army cadets did not have a “contract personally to do any work” and therefore was not covered by discrimination law.
Mr Breakell was a paid volunteer adult instructor with the Shropshire Army Cadet Force (ACF) of which he was formerly a member. However, the ACF was not obligated to provide him work, he didn’t have to accept the paid training days offered, and he was only paid for the days he did work.
After October 2009, the Ministry of Defence stopped payments for all training days because of budget issues. Mr Breakell claimed he had been discriminated against when there was no more work.
Deborah Nathan of Russell-Cooke LLP told Caritas: “At the heart of this case is the fact that the claimant, did not, in the view of the tribunal, have an ongoing obligation to accept work and the cadet force did not have an obligation to keep offering work to him and could not therefore establish employee status. However, employers should be aware that the claimant did not argue that once he had accepted each assignment he was an employee (when actually working) and that the breaks between each assignment were merely temporary cessations of work, which may have led to a different outcome.”
Breakell v West Midlands Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Association. 11 April 2011.
www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2011/0372_10_1104.html
Author: Clarissa Dann
Clarissa Dann was the editor of Caritas as well as an HR and management online service,he People Bulletin until July 2011.
She is now the editor of the specialist trade finance magazine, Trade and Forfaiting Review which can be viewed at www.tfreview.com but does write on charity finance and investment from time to time.
Clarissa has a background in legal and professional publishing, as well as business journalism and holds an MBA from
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