"There are many different situations in which the law requires a determination of whether an individual can be said to be ‘working': to determine his or her status as an ‘employee' or ‘worker', to decide his or her entitlement to contractual pay, to assess his or her entitlement to the National Minimum Wage and to distinguish working time from ‘rest periods' for the purposes of working time legislation. Where the individual is engaged in core work tasks at the workplace, it is straightforward to say that he or she is ‘working'. However, it will be argued in this article that there is a significant problem of ‘availability': where workers are not actively engaged in core work tasks at the workplace, but are not fully at liberty either. This might be because they are waiting to be offered work or ‘on call' in case of emergencies, for example. This ‘available' time is often not recognised by the law as ‘work', with the result that the workers in question may miss out on pay, employment rights and proper rest breaks. The article maps the problem of ‘availability', arguing that it strikes at the heart of how labour lawyers think about employment relationships, and suggests an alternative analysis. "

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