or is my boss taking the piss

[teenytinyshells]

For the last 5 years I've had a lovely job, making bags at home to order for my boss who sells them for £££. Really flexible, has fitted in well with kids but recently have got increasingly annoyed by the one sided nature of the relationship. I'm self employed, so no holiday pay/sickness/pension or any job security or control over monthly pay and my boss can be pretty tight with travel expenses

I've just found an 'employment status checker' tool and realised that for the past 5 years, I should have been classed as an employee rather than self employed (even though I file my own tax returns).

I'm not really 100% sure what this means and how I should raise this with my employer as I can't imagine it will go down well but I do feel a bit taken advantage of - not sure if IBU or not!

[teenytinyshells]

thanks newmum. I don't want to get them into trouble but I would like them to be fair and treat me (and my colleagues) as the employees it looks like we are or at least redress some of the imbalance. I really dislike conflict and am pretty bad at standing up for myself so no idea how to go about this!

[anotherdayanothersquabble]

Tricky one - due to the points highlighted above.

It does sound like your boss is making a good profit on the back of your labour and I can see why you would like to discuss it / redress the balance.

What is the likely outcome?
She could find someone else willing to do the work on the same terms.
She could give you an employment contract which would give you holiday pay, which they could say is included in your hourly rate as a contractor so reduce your hourly rate, possibly to living wage, and you could end up being worse off.
She could see the injustice of it all, give you an employment contract and a pay rise!

Is she exploiting you? Possibly
Is she breaking the law? Quite probably not based on the information you have provided.