The existence of an employment relationship is determined with elements of an employment relationship, defined in the Employment Relationships Act. The court upholds the action of a plaintiff if they prove that they were voluntarily involved in the organised working process, that their work was paid, and that they themselves worked continuously under the instructions and supervision of the defendant – employer. In this master's thesis, I conduct a law case study addressing the existence of an employment relationship in the following non-standard forms of work: student work, author contract, independent entrepreneur, and undeclared work. The formal contract between the plaintiff and the defendant is not a condition for recognizing the existence of an employment relationship, but rather the elements of a working relationship. Having analysed case law, I can determine that the element of continuity is the key element that separates employment contract from atypical forms of work. Certain characteristics of some non-standard forms of work coincide with the elements of a working relationship. For this reason, courts normally rely on the comparison between workers under an employment contract and workers who perform work under a civil law contract.
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