The Wages (Northern Ireland) Order 1988

Miscellaneous and supplemental

Application of part III to superior employers: liability of employers and others in respect of offences

23.—(1) Where—

(a) the immediate employer of a worker is himself in the employment of some other person; and

(b) the worker is employed on the premises of that other person, that other person shall be deemed for the purposes of this part to be the employer of the worker jointly with the immediate employer.

(2) Where the commission by any person of an offence under Article 17(2) or 20(4) is due to the act or default of some other person, that other person shall be guilty of the offence; and a person may be charged with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this paragraph whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person.

(3) In any proceedings for an offence under Article 17(2) or 20(4) it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that he exercised all due diligence and took all reasonable precautions to secure that the provisions of this part, and of any relevant regulations or order made under it, were complied with by himself and by any person under his control.

Regulations and orders made by Department under part III

24.—(1) The Department may make regulations for prescribing anything which by this part is authorised or required to be prescribed.

(2) Any regulations made by the Department under this part and any order made by the Department under Article 14 (other than an order to which paragraph (3) applies) shall be subject to negative resolution.

(3) An order under Article 14 which—

(a) abolishes a wages council, and

(b) does not direct that all or any of the workers previously within the scope of operation of that wages council shall be brought within the scope of operation of another wages council, shall not be made by the Department unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the Assembly.

(4) Any power conferred by this part to prescribe the manner in which anything is to be published shall include power to prescribe the date which is to be taken for the purposes of this part as the date of publication.

Interpretation of part III

25.—(1) In this part—

• “employer”, in relation to a worker, means the person by whom the worker is (or, where the employment has ceased, was) employed;

• “employers' association” means any organisation representing employers and any association of such organisations or of employers and such organisations;

• “employment”, in relation to a worker, means employment under his contract and “employed”, in relation to a worker, accordingly means employed under his contract;

• “homeworker” means an individual who—

  (a)

  contracts with a person, for the purposes of that person’s business, for the execution of work to be done in a place not under the control or management of the person with whom he contracts, and

  (b)

  does not normally make use of the services of more than two individuals in the carrying out of contracts for the execution of work in relation to which statutory minimum remuneration is provided by any order under Article 15;

• “organisation”, in relation to workers, means a trade union and, in relation to employers, means an employers' association;

• “piece rate” means a rate where the amount of a worker’s remuneration is to be calculated by reference to the number of items of work executed either by him alone or by a number of workers of whom he is one, and “piece worker” means a worker whose contract provides for the remuneration payable to him in respect of work executed by him to be calculated only by reference to one or more such rates;

• “prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by the Department;

• “time worker” means a worker other than a piece worker (whether the worker’s remuneration is determined by reference to the actual number of hours worked by him or not);

• “wages council” means such a wages council as is mentioned in Article 13(1)(a);

• “week” means—

  (a)

  in relation to a worker whose remuneration is calculated weekly by a week ending with a day other than Saturday, a week ending with that other day; and

  (b)

  in relation to any other worker, a week ending with Saturday;

• “worker” means (subject to paragraph (2)) an individual who—

  (a)

  has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under) one of the contracts referred to in Article 10(2), or

  (b)

  whether or not he falls within sub-paragraph (a) is a homeworker, and any reference to a worker’s contract shall be construed as a reference to any such contract as is referred to in sub-paragraph (a) or, in the case of a homeworker, to the contract by virtue of which he is a homeworker.

(2) In this part “worker” does not include an individual who is wholly employed otherwise than for the purposes of the business of the person employing him.

(3) Notwithstanding Article 15(3)—

(a) where a worker is employed partly for the purposes of his employer’s business and partly not, nothing in any order under Article 15 shall apply to the worker in his employment otherwise than for the purposes of that business, and

(b) where a worker is employed for the purposes of his employer’s business both in an employment to which an order under Article 15 applies and in one to which that order does not apply, nothing in that order shall apply to the worker in the second of those employments.

(4) References in this part to the statutory minimum remuneration provided for a worker by an order under Article 15 shall—

(a) in relation to a time worker, be construed in accordance with paragraph (4) of that Article, and

(b) in relation to a piece worker, be construed in accordance with Article 16.