Ms Emma O'Kelly:

I will do my best to speak on their behalf. I have worked closely for many years with colleagues on these bogus self-employment contracts. A lot of the time we did not know. You are just working with colleagues and you think they are the same as you. You assume they are on similar conditions. I remember the first time a colleague started to tell me about his employment conditions. I was completely shocked because at the time I had been looking into bogus self-employment in the construction industry around schools being built. I remember telling him that was completely wrong and he should be an employee. My colleague got very upset and I could see the stress and strain. I had to apologise to him in the end because he was so upset and saying he did not want to talk about it because he was under such strain. I have also spoken to female colleagues who told me about the times they went on maternity leave - three times in one case - and never got any maternity pay. They were shocking things for me to hear. As far as I and everybody else in the area I work in is concerned, they are colleagues straight up, just like us, but they were treated differently.