EMPLOYEE LAW AND RELATIONS

Employee Law and Relations



Employee Law and Relations

Introduction

Aimed at reducing unemployment rates and recover competitiveness, in the last decades many European countries have undertaken reforms in the labor market in order to increase flexibility. This has been mainly done “at the margin”, i.e. by easing the conditions under which a worker can be hired with non-standard work arrangements.

This strategy puts forward a potential problem of (increasing) worker insecurity, in as much as many temporary jobs simply substituted more protected positions, and involuntary part-time work is high in many countries, with a worrying increasing trend. Moreover, risk-averse workers, for any given present value of their future earnings, strictly prefer more stable career patterns, so that temporary workers usually feel less secure than their standard colleagues. Not surprisingly, therefore, the empirical evidence suggests that non-standard workers are less secure according to both objective and subjective measures (Wong, 2004. 42).

Contract of Employment

By entering a contractual relationship with the employer and become some of the individual rights of employees. This contractual relationship is driven by the Council to issue legislation. These two processes constitute the rights of employees on their working hours, most people return from their What is the unfair or wrongful dismissal and discrimination and protection of employment (Wong, 2004. 42).

That is a contract between employers and employees is a very important document. This is the employee's first line of defense from his employer misconduct. An employment contract should contain a whole wealth of information and is considered legally binding to both parties by the law. A contract should contain the employee's job title and their role, the total number of hours required on a weekly basis, the payment scheme, any pension scheme as well as information on the procedures for requesting holiday, lodging complaints and grievances and job termination. By signing a contract both the employee and the employer act to limit their freedom of action in the interest of the other, the employee should make sure they are aware of what they are permitted to do and not to do before they sign it (Willey, 2003. 69).

Accompanying this contractual relationship is the statutory rights that each employee has in the UK as a result of government legislation. The principal right here is the requirement that every employee is paid for the work that they do unless they have agreed otherwise. When this is coupled with right to receive at least the minimum wage the result is that all adult workers will receive £5.93 for every hour that they work. The rate for younger workers depends on their age with an individual aged between 16 and 17 receiving £3.64 and an individual aged from 18 to 21 receiving £4.92 for every hour that they work (Willey, 2003. 69).

Another important piece of legislation was the Working Time Regulations Act of 1998. This momentous legal text places a limit of 48 hours a week that an employer can require someone to work without receiving their written ...