Legislation

This act entitles agency workers who complete a qualifying period to equal working conditions and rights. This extends to standard employee benefits as well as access to facilities such as canteens and transport. In effect this is intended to provide equality for those hired directly and those employed via an agency to prevent a second-class work force.

This legislation prevents organisation from allowing a person associated with them from making bribes on their behalf. An organisation should have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery.

This provides clarification and changes to TUPE regulations providing variation on how business may consult with employees.

This act defines a set of data protection principles. The legislation sets out how personal data should be used, collected and stored. It also defines specific categories of data which are considered to be more sensitive and must be given greater protection. Individuals are also given specific rights over their own data and how it can be used.

This requires that young people receive appropriate education or training until the age of 18; this can include apprenticeships in the work place. Young people are entitled to work although some provision for their education or training must be made.

This lays out the way in which an employer must handle an employee’s request for time to undertake training or study. The right to request time off for study and training is granted in the Employment Rights Act 1996, this requires that employers seriously consider requests relating to training or study.

This legislation requires that every employer holds at least a minimum level of insurance to cover claims made by employees for injury or illness.

The headline right from this act protects workers from discrimination based on membership (or non-membership) of a trade union. The act also includes provisions for maternity, paternity and parental leave as well as the right to be accompanied in disciplinary and grievance hearings.

The Employment Rights Act sets out specific rights for workers. The act covers many employment areas from contracts to dismissal, time off, redundancy and more. The act consolidated several previous pieces of legislation and also extended the rights granted. Several amendments have been made to the act since it was first enacted.

This act defines a set of protected characteristics which must be respected. These are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

Direct and indirect discrimination is included as well as harassment and victimisation. The act also defines a duty to make adjustments for disabled people.

This provides workers on a fixed term contracts a number of rights, most notable the right to not be treated less favourably than a comparable permanent employee. It also makes employees on successive fixed term contracts permanent if they have been continuously employed in this way for four years or more. The pro rate principle can be used to establish parity with an equivalent permanent employee.

Employees who have worked continuously for at least 26 weeks are entitled to make a request for flexible working. This regulation defines how applications can be made and when they are considered to have been received.

This sets out the duties of employers and employees in relation to health and safety and places obligations on each.

Employers are required to provide a safe working environment, that may require them to offer appropriate training to staff as well as carrying out maintenance and risk assessments. Employees are required to reasonable care of their self or others who might affected by their work or omissions. Employees are also required to cooperate with their employer to enable them to enact health and safety polices.

This legislation sets out the basic fundamental rights and freedoms which everyone in the UK is entitled to, these are found in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The EHCR contains the following rights and freedoms: the right to lie, the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, the prohibition of slavery and forced labour, the right to liberty and security, the right to a fair trial, the prohibition of retrospective criminal penalties, the right to a private family life, the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the freedom of expression, the freedom f assembly and association, the right to marry, the right to an effective national remedy for breaches of these rights and the prohibition of discrimination in the protection of these rights.

In relation to employment this legislation defines penalties for employing those who are not eligible to work in the UK.

This national minimum wage is the minimum hourly rate an employee can be paid in the UK. Specific lower rates are applied to apprentices. Some workers are excluded from the legislation such as certain types of fishermen and voluntary workers.

The national minimum wage applies to those under the age of 23, a higher rate, the national living wage applies to those over the age of 23.

An amendment to the Employment Rights Act 1996 gives employees the right to an itemised payslip.

This legislation follows on from the Employment Relations Act 1999 and Employment Rights Act 1996, seeking to deliver parity between part time and full-time workers.

This act defines the pro rata principle where by a part time worker should receive not less than a proportional amount of pay or benefit as a comparable full-time worker. Employees are also the right to a written explanation of the reasons for less favourable treatment.

Employers are required to opt qualifying employees into a pension scheme by default. Employees have the option to opt out of the scheme if they wish to.

This allows for criminal convictions and cautions to expire preventing an employer from refusing to employ or dismiss someone on the basis of an expired conviction. In essence for the rehabilitation of an offender to be possible the impact of a conviction should have an appropriate scope.

This act defines a number of statutory benefits which UK residents may be entitled to. This includes items such as statutory sick, maternity, paternity and incapacity pay. The act defines the requirements and entitlements for each benefit as well as details of contributions.

This legislation is aimed at preventing those deemed unsuitable from gaining access to vulnerable people (children and adults) through their work.

This legislation creates rules for trade union ballots. This sets out requirements for ballot papers as well of notification periods and turnout requirements.

This act defines trade unions and also workers rights to participate (or not) with trade unions without penalty. It also creates a framework for collective bargaining and protects the right of union members to take action, such as strikes, to support their interests.

Usually referred to as TUPE this act provides workers with rights when a business is transferred to a new owner.

An important right is when ownership of a business transfers the original contracts of employment are considered to have been made with the new owner. This does not prevent changes from being made where both parties agree to them. Some protections are also given in relation to dismissal related to the transfer.

This legislation considers time worked as well as rest breaks and leave entitlements.

It creates a maximum limit on the number of hours which can be worked within a week (which can be opted out of). The limit is an average of 48 hours in each seven-day period.

An entitlement to annual leave was also defined as being four weeks (after 13 weeks of service). Importantly the start and end of the leave year is also defined, either as being that agreed to in their contract or if not defined there then the anniversary of their employment date or 1st October where the employment began on or before 1st October 1998. This leave entitlement must be taken in the specified leave year and can not be replaced by payments in lieu.

This increased the minimum amount of annual holiday entitlement to 5.6 weeks.