Business Law and Ethics: Employment, Constructive Dismissal, and Ethical Perspectives

This report explores the concepts of employment, constructive dismissal, and ethical perspectives in the context of business law and ethics. It discusses different types of workers, common rules in employment law, and provides advice for handling an ethical dilemma at the workplace. The case scenario involves Linda, an employee who discovers fraud in her company and faces various ethical dilemmas.

Business Law and
Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
1. Define employment and what type of worker Linda is...........................................................3
2. Explain the common rules in context to employment law......................................................4
3. What is constructive dismissal and advise Linda as to whether this is the option to consider.
.....................................................................................................................................................5
4. Discuss this case in context to various ethical perspectives at play and advise Linda on it.. .5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The business law and ethics are the terms which are not used interchangeably. At times,
there are situations when the companies take many actions which are legally right on one hand
but are not ethically correct. Business law provides minimum standards for the behaviour which
the firms are expected to follow and ethics goes beyond the legality as they provides the ways in
which the business is required to behave (Saba, 2019). It is important to have strict enforcement
of law in companies so that there is no working beyond the purview of law. This report shall
cover the ethical dilemma at workplace in context to employment law.
MAIN BODY
Case scenario
Linda began to work in local company of retailer as account assistant where she joined
three months ago with the probation period of six months. The main challenge in her work was
she was always late for it. During her probation, she found that Charles, Chief accountant is
involved in some fraud. She reported her suspicion to Heather, line supervisor but he ignored the
matter. After few days, when she was going home, she found Charles and Heather at wine bar
where they were socialising and embracing each other passionately. Linda pretended to not have
noticed them but the next day Heather brought this topic jokingly that they saw Linda. Both
Heather and Charles have different spouses and they both attempted to but silence of her by
befriended her and began to invite her in wine bar. Charles even wrote to Linda the cheque of
company 0of 20000 pounds in order to purchase the car as she was always late for work. Charles
also offered her the ticket to Spain for holiday. After few time, company went into
administration and administrator wants to ask the question regarding the fraud to which Linda is
implicated.
1. Define employment and what type of worker Linda is.
Employment is the term which is defined as a relationship of two people, based on
contract where the work which is involved is paid and the parties are an employer and the
employee (Dau-Schmidt and et. al., 2017). Under the employment law of UK, there are mainly
four different types of workers and each worker is entrusted with different employment
protection rights. These are narrated below-

 Agency workers- They are mainly employed and engaged by employment agency which
offer services to the hirer. They are engaged for the temporary basis and are given very
few employment protection rights under the law. Independent contractors- This includes the one which has their own business and is
responsible for making their own decisions regarding how the job role is to be
performed. There are advantages given to the independent contractors such as enjoyment
in tax position and they are also free from most of the statutory law of employment
protection. Employees- The major population in UK are the employees and the basic principle of the
common and statutory law applies to employees, irrespective of their employment status.
They gets the maximum protection under the law as compared to other types of workers
such as independent contractors or agency workers.
 Workers- This kind of worker is derived from the European law. It is defined as the ione
who works under employment contract or the one who agree to work on personal basis
under any contract (Goldberg and Wilkinson, 2019).
In relation to present case scenario, Linda is the employee of the local retail company and
she is entitled to all the protection under the employment law.
2. Explain the common rules in context to employment law.
There are many statutes being included into the ambit of employment law which provides
certain rights to employees and protect them from being exploited. The rules in relation to
employment law are discussed below but is not exhaustive-
 The law of employment states that every employee is entitled to the employment contract
within two months of its joining the job. This right is enumerated under the Employment
Rights Act, 1996.
 The law offers certain rights to the employees such as minimum wages to which they are
entitled, maximum working hours per week, paid leaves, etc.
 The employee has a right not to get unfairly or wrongfully dismissed from the
employment and any worker who is dismissed, may reach the employment tribunal to
claim appropriate remedy (Sargeant and Lewis, 2018).

3. What is constructive dismissal and advise Linda as to whether this is the option to consider.
It is the situation in which the employee is forced to leave or quit the hob not with the
reason that she/ he wanted to leave but due to conduct of employer. It is that situation where the
employer has committed breach of any term of contract which forced the worker to resign from
the employment. The reason for the dismissal includes the following but the list is not
exhaustive-
 The employer is forcing to accept the changes in working conditions which are
unreasonable.
 The employer have demoted or is not fairly treating the employee.
 Ask other employees to harass or bully the worker (Payne, 2018).
In relation to current case scenario, Linda must not opt for this option as she is a loyal
employee of the company. When she got aware of the fraud, she tried to communicate the same
to Line supervisor to which he did not responded. As her ethical duty, she tried to bring such
fraud into the notice of management. Just be resigning from the job as constructive dismissal
shall not do justice with the company as it will not bring any amicable solution for both Linda
and company.
4. Discuss this case in context to various ethical perspectives at play and advise Linda on it.
There are many ethical perspectives in this scenario which must be considered. Some of
it discussed below-
 The first perspective is that Heather has offered Linda couple of ticket to Spain in order
to buy her silence. He used its private funds to befriend her but this is not done in order to
buy silence of Linda, rather he wanted to sexually harass her because she was knowing
the truth of fraud as no employer can personally offer the holiday tickets to any
employees as it is ethically wrong.
 Next is when Charles offered her the cheque of company to buy the car as she is always
late fir work. The main point in this issue is that the cheque is drawn from company and
Linda has not purchased any car from that money. As the cheque is not drawn personally,
and is drawn from company so it shows that he wanted to befriend her and buy her
silence which is ethically incorrect. The third perspective is that Linda must act as whistle blower in front of administrator
and disclose about the fraud to which she is implicated. By acting as whistle blower, she

will get protection under the law. Two things will be there when disclosure is done, the
first is that there is a disclosure in public interest and secondly the disclosure relates to
the past and present wrongdoing which falls under criminal offence such as fraud (de
Flamingh and Bell, 2020).
Advise to Linda
She must act as whistle-blower and disclose about the fraud to administrator. Rather than
opting for constructive dismissal, she must become whistle-blower as she will also get protection
under the Employment Rights Act. It is her ethical duty to act in good faith for company and by
disclosing the fraud, she will fulfil her duty.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that employment law is a vast field which covers
many legislations under it. There are different kinds of workers which includes employees,
independent contractor, workers and agency worker. The law offers variety of rights in order to
protect the employees from exploitation. There are many kinds of dismissal under the law which
includes unfair, wrongful and constructive dismissal. At last, it is summarised that the scenario
discussed in report has three ethical perspective which relates to fraud which is committed in
company.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dau-Schmidt, K.G., and et. al., 2017. The Restatement of Employment Law: The View from
Practice. Emp. Rts. & Emp. Pol'y J.. 21. p.545.
de Flamingh, J. and Bell, C., 2020. Employment law: Employment relationships-when two's
company and three's a crowd. LSJ: Law Society of NSW Journal. (70). pp.82-84.
Goldberg, J. and Wilkinson, G., 2019. The deeming provision put to the test: employment
law. Without Prejudice. 19(3). pp.16-18.
Payne, E., 2018. Employment law for the digital age: how social media and IT have affected the
contract of employment (Doctoral dissertation, University College Cork).
Saba, C., 2019. Employment Law Violations. Am. Crim. L. Rev.. 56. p.759.
Sargeant, M. and Lewis, D., 2018. Employment law. Routledge.