The Discrimination Act protects against unfair treatment in recruitment, dismissal, conditions of employment, promotion, training and dismissal. UK law recognises four types of discrimination: The second, and first, feature of the employment contract is that employees are required to follow their employer`s instructions when working, as long as it does not violate the law or agreed terms. The employment relationship gives the employer discretion in limited areas. This is what used to be called the “master-servant” relationship. The employer has some option to modify the way work is performed based on the needs of the business,[77] as long as this does not contradict the express terms of a contract, which always require an employee`s consent,[78] or a collective agreement. [79] The status of “flexibility clauses,” which are intended to give employers discretion to amend any contractual clause, has been challenged as they often allow for common law-controlled abuses of authority. [80] The limits of court tolerance for such practices become clear when they affect access to justice procedures[81] or when they could violate the duty of mutual trust. The remit of labour tribunals has grown steadily over time. You can now hear more than 80 different types of claims, including: Labour tribunals are hearings that take place before a labour judge (and sometimes two lay members, depending on the nature of the claim) and rule on employment-related issues such as dismissal claims and wage disputes. For example, UK employment laws protect organisations by setting out guidelines on what to include in a contract, such as the right to holiday, disciplinary rules and notice periods. Contracts protect employers because they provide clarity and a benchmark to ensure employees and employers are on the same page. The legal definition of “salary” includes any form of remuneration for employment, including fees, bonuses, commissions, paid holidays and non-contractual bonuses.
In particular, your employer cannot make a deduction from your wages unless expressly permitted by law, if an overpayment has been paid to the employee, or if the employee has voluntarily agreed to the deduction, for example in the case of income tax or contributory pension payments. One of the most important labour rights, on which all other labour rights are based, is the “right to work” and therefore to full employment “at fair wages” and with all the hours you need. [541] Under international law, everyone has “the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment.” [542] However, it does not say how this is to be achieved. In the United Kingdom, three main legal policies have been used: fiscal policy, monetary policy and insurance policy. First, as early as the 1944 White Paper on Employment Policy,[543] the British government announced a strategy to spend money to counter the volatility of private investment in five-year blocks. Private spending can be subject to ups and downs, as can international investment, while consumer spending is generally more stable and government spending can be actively managed. The Government also passed the Industry Distribution Act of 1945, which ensured that investments were distributed among regions and cities, and the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act of 1944, which required large companies to hire a quota of persons with disabilities. Full employment, with almost no cost to the government,[544] lasted until the 1973 oil crisis, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries raised gasoline prices, thereby increasing the cost of running the economy. This inflation has been supported by economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek to prove that there is a natural rate of unemployment that makes it impossible to attempt full employment.
Although this theory lacked evidence,[545] Margaret Thatcher`s new Conservative government abandoned full employment as a goal from 1979 and triggered a rise in inflation when it began attacking the labour movement. In 2019, the concept of a natural unemployment rate, allegedly caused by strengthening workers` rights, was abandoned by the head of the US Federal Reserve. [546] In short, section 1 of the Social Protection and Labour Reform Act 2016 created an obligation for the government to “report annually on progress towards full employment,” but this was abandoned with the 2017 UK general election. While unemployment has fallen since 2010, underemployment has risen sharply and workers` wages have been reduced for the longest period since the Industrial Revolution.