Employment Law - An Overview

Employment law covers a huge range of topics and is more than likely to affect you at some stage in your working life. The main areas of employment law that might affect you are; Pay, working hours, sickness and holidays, redundancy, and discrimination.

Employment law is constantly being revised so you will need to keep up to date with your rights and obligations as an employer or employee. One of the most key areas of employment law is pay. Employees  have the right to get paid the correct amount and on time. When starting a new job, your employer should give you a contract that explains the amount of money you will be paid and the dates that it will be paid. Most employers should provide you with a payslip explaining how much you have been paid and any tax deductions that have been made. If you have been ill you may be entitled to sick pay.

In the UK you cannot be forced to work over 48 hours a week on average and you can choose to opt out of this law if you wish but you must do so in writing.

Linked to working hours in employment law is sickness leave and holidays. If you are ill you can self certify for 7 days but after this you will usually need to provide your employer with a doctor's note. By law, the minimum amount of holiday for a full time employee is 5.6 weeks a year, in which you should be paid. You should ensure that you give your employer the correct amount of notice before you take your holiday. You should talk to your human resources department to find out exactly how much holiday you get and the amount of notice you will need to provide when you want to take it.

Employment law also covers what happens if you are made redundant. You will qualify for redundancy pay if you have been working for your company continuously for 2 years. You will not be eligible for redundancy pay if you are fired due to misconduct, if you are offered another job which is suitable for you within the company and you refuse to take it, if you have renounced your redundancy rights or if you are a share fisherman. If you feel as if you should get redundancy pay you should talk to your employer or if they fail to cooperate you can take the matter to an employment tribunal.

A complex area of employment law is work based discrimination. Employment law will protect you from being discriminated against because of your age, race, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, pregnancy, or religion. This means that it is illegal for your employer to treat you differently from any other employees for any of these reasons.