Legal limitations of CS30+31

[Big J]

I am curious as to why many of you think that what we are doing constitutes workplace exploitation......

 

The PL insurance I would have regardless owing to my other work activities, we are very well paid (for the thinning in particular), get to chose our own working hours, and the estate are delighted with all the work we have done, to the point where we have more than we can effectively manage.

 

The estate is simply doing as most estates are doing - shifting from direct employees to sub contractors. By myself and my colleague using all our own kit, having our own insurances and dictating our own working hours, it makes life easier for them. I would not want to be in full employment with them either, as I have too many other things to do.

 

Regarding the CS32, I'll get it booked asap

 

Jonathan

[Rupe]

Its all good if you are happy with it. My advice would be that one of you should employ the other (even as self employed) and only have one insurance policy that includes employers liability. Then give the estate fixed price quotes for sections of work and get away from the hourly rate.

 

I assure you the your PL will not cover in the instance you are explaining. They will say that you are not subcontracting if you are on an hourly rate, and if one of you injures the other PL would cover that anyway. If you are not being exploited then thats great and happy days all round. I expect you to both be on £30.00 - £40.00 an hour then in order to cover all your costs in which case great, but as said before if it all went wrong and was investigated the estate would be negligent. They have a duty of care over their employees and you would be regarded as employees if you are on hourly rate, three days a week.

 

There are just too many contradictions, colleagues that are seperate subcontractors, with independant PL insurance working together on hourly rate etc etc. Why would you have two risk assessments? Who wants the risk assessments anyway? If you are subcontractors then who is the main contractor?

 

With regard to your original question about legalities of felling larger trees, its all irrelevant as far as the PL goes. The public (or any third party) are not going to be covered by either of your insurance policies so you might as well fell as big as you want, you might as well do tree climbing stuff as well as the public are still not protected, and the estate will be at fault for allowign the work to be carried out on their land without adequate insurance.

 

If you felled a 20cm tree on a car and it crashed your insurance would not pay out, simple as that. The estate would be negligent, and I would assume they know this and/or the forestor formeman know this. I guess you two are cheaper than the estate hiring a forestry contractor? In an ideal world you could be employed by a forestry contractor to go and work on that estate.

 

But its not an ideal world (unless you are an insurance salesman). Good luck with it all though, make some good money, don't have accidents and do some more courses as soon as you can.

[Rupe]

nowt wrong wiv being employed by the job or by the hour.

 

Thats correct, they are employed by the hour. The only thing wrong is that they are payign insurance times two! When you are employed (including self employed) by the hour or by the job, you do not need your own insurance.

 

If you are a subcontractor, working independantly of a main contractor then you should have sub contractors insurance and the main contractors insurance must include the use of sub contractors.

 

If you are self employed (hourly or whatever) and you phone an insurance company and say you are a subcontractor or "subbie" they WILL take the money off you. That does not make you insured and it does not make the public protected.

[ukminch]

I think it can be very grey - not saying your wrong but a couple of the points would definietely be open to discussion. Particularly the hourly rate. I sub to a landscaper with my chipper on an hourly rate as he hasn't got one. We also do some grass cutting/maintenance for private clients where they pay for an hour so if the grass is short they get more weeding etc done than if it's grown 6inches, rather than pricing for the job.

 

R

[Hodge]

CS32 is a must if you wanna do this job seriously, you learn to use high lift wedges which are a great bit of kit and how to fell medium trees. if you were doing a job and was asked to knock over a bigger tree then you can. when i did CS32 i also did wind blown trees which has come in very handy.

[Rupe]

Sure, its just one point (the hourly rate thing) but it all adds up wrong IMO.

 

But, when you are "subbing" at your hourly rate, he (the landscaper) is the main contractor and must have insurance that includes the use of subcontractors, only then will your seperate insurance be valid.

 

Put another way. If his clients windows get broken form debris from your chipper, the client will not claim from you as you are not working for them. The client will claim fromt he landscaper, he puts in a claim on his insurance and states that he was using a subcontractor to carry out the seperate task of chipping. If his insurance covers this then they will pay out and recover the money from your insurance.

 

If his insurance does not cover the use of sub contractors then there will be no pay out, he would have to cliam directly from your insurance but as he is not the damged party this will be difficult. The client might try and recover the damges from your insurance but this will proably fail too. So unless everything is watertight the result is that the insuracne comapany keep all your money and they win.

 

Of course, being an upstanding person you would have already replaced the broken windows your self by this time, and the insurance is not relavent, but hopefully you get my point.

 

The key is the definition of sub contracting and what that is, not what a person "thinks" it is, or wants it to be.

[ukminch]

Yep I've got a friendly double glazing man that is normally there within 4 hours with a nice shiny piece of glass. But that's only if I'm local otherwise I have to rely on a local person not to sting me to badly.

 

I do agree with what your saying but in that instance what would happen in real life is that the lanscaper would explain that I'd broken the window and would sort it to his client. I'd then ring up my insurance company and they'd instruct what was going to happen next, id inform the person who's window it was. I know technically that isn't correct, and I've never had to make a claim so who knows.

 

I'm insured upto the hilt, I just hope it works if I do ever make a claim!!!

 

R

[Rupe]

Sounds like you are sorted, but the excesses are so high that no one ever cliams for minor damage anyway.

 

Insurance company wins.

 

You have to do a lot of damage to ever need to claim on PL.

[ukminch]

The only time i've ever thought 5 mill might no have been enough was dismantling some pops above a classic car restorers with an asbestos roof. He was telling me this cars worth this and so on........

 

It was a climber I'd never used before aswell but they came well reccomended and didn't break anything!

 

R

[Big J]

I suppose strictly speaking we are contractors, rather than sub contractors, as we answer straight to the forester. It's a cracking gig - I realise Rupe that you might not think so, but I get to work all day long on a beautiful estate where I live, being paid by the hour so that the work isn't rushed (with it being parkland, they are very concious of appearance and best practice), doing a hugely varied job and with complete flexibility to choose my own hours. If it's pissing it down and I've had enough, I just pack up for the day and go potter building something at the workshop. My PL insurance is fairly comprehensive and costs me £600 per annum, and my overheads are small.

 

The original point of the thread was to ascertain the value, both legally and practically of the CS32 certification. Legally speaking, it would appear it's down to the individual insurer, and practically it seems very worth while. My local arb trainer (Chris White of Treevolution) does CS32 for £370+vat though I think that excludes the assessment.

 

Jonathan