The legal status of SA Officers :-)

I found out something recently that struck me as quite refrshing and liberating!

In the UK Salvation Army Officers are not ‘employees’ nor are they ‘volunteers’ the correct legal term for our function is ‘office holder’.

When we signed our declaration and our Covenant accepting that we have no legal relationship with the Army we were accepting our role as ‘officer holders’.

'Office holders' do not have a contract of employment and are not protected by employment law including the national minimum wage rules or the working time regulations.

Anglican priests (working as Parish Priests) are also ‘Office Holders’ and this status is something that the CoE recently decided to retain (the following quote is from their official webpage)

“The review of clergy terms of service concluded that the ministry of the Church was best enabled through the retention of the officer holder status of clergy. Whilst there are benefits to the integration of the majority of employee rights into the life of the Church, the classification of parochial clergy as employees would entail too significant an alteration to the basis on which ministry is provided. The key feature of an employer/employee relationship is the ability of the employer to direct the work of the employee. The nature of the parochial ministry of the Church of England makes such a relationship impossible without a radical change in how clergy are deployed.”

The police are also ‘office holders’ and are not entitled to the rights provided by employment law – for example a police officer can have their leave cancelled at the last moment or even be called back from their holiday, they can’t form a union or strike, they are not protected by the working time directive and they can be appointed to any location in their area without consultation. ‘Office Holders’ can take their ‘employers’ to employment tribunals BUT on the grounds of discrimination alone.

Any agreement that an ‘office holder’ enters into with his ‘employer’ is legally binding - in our case this would include adherence to O&R’s for Officers, not accepting a second income without consent and signing over publication rights. The only way we could gain access to the protection and rights afforded by employment law would be to have our status changed from ‘office holder’ to employee and I don’t think that is about to happen.

I relish the idea that I have no legal rights - it throws me onto the mercy of God rather than the mercy of the courts! I am covenanted warrior who has voluntarily surrendered his human rights to the Salvation Army and it feels great!

Love and prayers

A