Glossary

A worker is generally someone who has a contract (which does not have to be written) or another arrangement to do work for a reward. The reward can either be for money or a benefit in kind. They must turn up for work even if they don’t want to and they only have a limited right to send someone else to do the work (to sub-contract the work). Workers are entitled to the national minimum wage, protection against unlawful deductions from wages, a statutory level of paid holiday and rest breaks. They should not work more than 48 hours on average per week and have protection against unlawful discrimination.

Any construction contracts have a clause where they must “work regularly and diligently”, which translates as they must hit time targets. These targets can either be deemed as a start date, a completion date or hitting certain target dates for certain building milestones to be completed. Sub-contractors may also have similar contracts in place with contractors to ensure that a building project is completed on time.