Dominos pizza drivers a landmark judgement on bogus self employment

• Landmark judgement has implications of thousands of workers in this country.
• State must legislate to ensure employment status is clear cut.

Labour workers’ rights spokesperson Marie Sherlock has described the ruling that Dominos pizza drivers were employees, not contractors, in the Supereme Court as a landmark moment on bogus self employment.

Senator Sherlock said:

“This is a landmark judgement when it comes to tackling bogus self employment, and determining who is and who is not an employee.

“Credit to the Revenue Commission for taking and persevering with this hugely important case. The precedent today’s judgement has set down will be massive for all working people who are victims of bogus self employment. 

“Employers, who force workers into disguised self-employed arrangements when those same workers are, for all intents and purposes direct employees in all but name, deprive workers of both their rights as workers and their social welfare entitlements.

“This behaviour also cheats the State out of tens of millions in lost PRSI income and tax revenue, which means less money for social welfare and for our hospitals and schools.

“These practices are well known in construction, and the phenomenon has spread to sectors including food, tourism, IT, media and culture, transport and logistics and finance and law.

“The Dominos workers are the real winners today, but it shouldn’t take a very long and expensive litigation process to determine employment status. The very fact that this case had to go as far as the Supreme Court beggars belief.

“Labour introduced legislation in 2021 to stamp out bogus self employment, automatically designating all workers as employees unless they opt out. Today’s judgement must act as an impetus to Minister Coveney to tackle this once and for all.”