Wednesday 18 April 2012

A prize and an important (?) question

Yesterday evening, just before going to bed, I went to Tamsin's Blog, and there I discovered I had won a prize! Hurray! I wanted the M.A.S.H DVD set and got it.


Ok, there was no real competition, since we were only two, but then, it's always nice to get a present ;) 

Now, for the question: as you know, I'm now working as a tutor, but in fact I'm considered as self-employed. Yesterday, I was tutoring in another tut. company simply because it was large enough to teach in front of a group of pupils. After the lesson, the manager spoke to me and asked me if I could work for them. Now because tutoring is part time, most of the time anyway, I could work for both companies. But then, am I allowed to do it in the UK law? I read my first contract and there is no exclusivity clause, so I think I could. What do you think?


A mes chers lecteurs francophones: bon, pas de question pour vous, sauf si vous vous y connaissez en droit du travail anglais. Bref, le post du jour sera plus court, simplement pour mentionner le fait que j'ai gagne un prix a la loterie sur le blog de Tamsin. J'avais demande le coffret de M.A.S.H et l'ai gagne. Yeepeeeee!  Bon, des que m apuce dort, je file peindre un peu.

7 comments:

  1. Huzzah for Tamsin! She is super-generous to her followers (bribery will make her go far!) ;-)

    As to your other point, if you're a contractor and are self-employed, I don't see why you can't work for more than one organisation (but then again, I'm no expert on British workplace law!).

    ReplyDelete
  2. As long as their's no conflict of interests, I work for a security company but not allowed to work for another security company and congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Many congratulations on both counts , Sounds like things have worked out well for you from a work perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If you don't have a contractual agreement that you just work for one then you can work for a second. Also being self employed makes this easier from a tax point of view IF you remain self employed in the other position. See below.

    If you work for more than one employer your second job automatically gets taxed at standard rate even if the first job does not qualify for full tax. As such if you earn more money from the second job you would have to change that to the primary job.

    However if self employed for both then the above does not effect you

    Hope it helps a bit

    Ian

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well done about the DVD win!!! And go for it, Ian's explained the system perfectly!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congrats Seb! I'll bring the DVD along to the club next week.

    Can't help much with the employment question, although I do know there are issues with the tax and employment laws about whether someone is genuinely self employed. It all boils down to how much control you have over working hours, location and ability to task someone else to do the work on your behalf.

    Even if not self-employed, provided there is no clause in the contract saying you can't work for another employer in the same industry then there is nothing to stop you, but as Ian points out it can make things awkward tax-wise.

    ReplyDelete
  7. As long as your first contract says nothing about working with exclusively for that employer while your contract exists then you are free to take on other contracts.
    As Fran says you do have to have a mind of any possible conflict of interests and if you can't organise your working hours to avoid one job starting before the other is due to finish then you obviously run the risk of having your contract terminated and in those circumstances you would have very little chance of trying to claim a breach of contract by your employer. Being self-employed means you don't have the same protection under employment law as an employee.

    You'd best check with the Tax Office that you are being treated as being self-employed because if you are then you won't be having tax deducted from your income from your contracts. Instead you will be required to complete a tax return and be prepared to pay any tax liability in a lump sum each January and July with pretty steep penalties if you are late with your payments

    ReplyDelete