Employer/Employee Rights and Responsibilities

Research Project

Employer/Employee Rights and Responsibilities - The Main Pieces of Employment Law

Task 1

Aim:

To understand the key features of the main pieces of employment law. Note: Acts of Parliament always have capital letters as shown and you should always give the date.

Below is a list of the main laws relating to employment. A suggested link will be provided and your task is to identify the main features of the legislation concerned.

Research guide:

You can insert the name of the act into a search engine. The search engine will invariably take you to a copy of the act published by the Crown. However, such documents can be extremely long and difficult to follow. In such circumstances, you need to find a source that has summarised the act concerned - this makes your task easier. Use the 'Advanced Search' facility to help you narrow down the possibilities. For example, putting in 'Equal Pay Act 1970' + summary will give a narrower range of possibly relevant resources (2180 possible results) than would just Equal Pay Act 1970 (which provides 38,900 possible results). Be sure to look at the URL - the Web address - as well. This can often give a clue as to whether the result will be useful or not.

The Equal Pay Act 1970
Suggested link:

Equal Opportunities Commission (http://www.eoc.org.uk/cseng/legislation/the_equal_pay_act_an_overview.asp)

Employment Relations Bill 2004
Suggested link:

Department of Trade and Industry (http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/erbill_2003.htm)

Sex Discrimination Act 1975
Suggested links:

Press for Change (http://www.pfc.org.uk/legal/sda.htm)
Equal Opportunities Commission (http://www.eoc-law.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=4261)

Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993
Suggested links:

The Institute of Employment Rights (http://www.ier.org.uk/tu_law.htm)
Department of Trade and Industry (http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/union/employers-pl870.htm)

Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
Suggested link:

Health & Safety Executive (http://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/)

Disability Discrimination Act 1995
Suggested link:

Disability Policy Division (http://www.disability.gov.uk/dda/index.html)

Race Relations Act 1976
Suggested link:

Commission for Racial Equality (http://www.cre.gov.uk/legal/rra.html)

Employment Act 2002
Suggested links:

University of the West of England (http://imp.uwe.ac.uk/imp_public/displayEntry.asp?URN=850&rp=listCategory.asp?cat=438)
PayPerShop (http://www.paypershop.com/news-cat/matern.html#12)
Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (http://www.rpc.co.uk/main/..%5Cpdf%5CInWork_sept02.pdf)

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
Suggested links:

Health & Safety Executive - go to page 17, 'The Legal Framework' (http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/ohsingb.pdf)

EU Directives:
Suggested links:

Spring Personnel (http://www.spring.com/springpersonnel/PDF/indinf/EU%20Legislation.pdf)
Equal Opportunities Commission Website for Legal Advisers (http://www.eoc-law.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=2710&lang=en)

a) Working Time Directive

b) Equal Pay Directive

c) Equal Treatment Directive

d) Part Time Workers Directive

e) Parental Leave Directive

f) Pregnant Workers Directive

g) European Social Chapter
Suggested link:

Euro Know (http://www.euro-know.org/dictionary/s.html#SocialChapter)

Having now got some basic information about the various pieces of legislation, we need to look at what the impact of some of this legislation might be on a business organisation.

Let's take a hypothetical case and try to investigate this matter.

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