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The Employment Law Assignment

   

Added on  2020-12-09

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Employment Law

Employment law governs the relationship between the employer and the employees andregulates the expectations of the employer from the employees (Barnard, 2012). Theemployment law provides with the provisions pertaining to what the employer can ask from theemployees to do and what are the rights of the employees at place of work. While recruiting anindividual the legal factors which affect the recruitment and selection process are discrimination,right to work in Britain, criminal records check and data protection. All these are protected andgoverned under various different legislations and provisions, for instance, the EmploymentRights Act, 1996 governs the principles of unfair dismissal, the Equality Act, 2010 covers theprovisions related to discrimination, etc.The employment responsibilities of an employer are determined by the type of contractand the employment status of the employees. The various type of employment contracts are –full-time and part-time contract, fixed-term contract, contract of agency, freelancers &consultants contracts, and zero hour contracts (GOV.UK, 2012).The given case provides that the cafeteria owner Adams has employed a number of part-time staff for waiting on tables and working behind the counter. A part time worker is a personwho works for lesser hours than a full-time worker. There is no specific limit of number of hourswhich describes one as a full-time worker or part-time worker. But, generally a full-time workerhas to work for 35 hours or more in a week. The part-time workers are entitled to be protectedfrom unequal treatment in comparison to the full-time workers (GOV.UK, 2012). The part-timeworkers are entitled to same treatment on the grounds of – equal pay rates comprising of sickleave, maternity, paternity and adoption leave etc., pension related benefits, holidays,opportunity of training and career development, selection in terms of promotion, transfer and forredundancy, equal opportunities for career breaks, and the part-time workers are entitled to prorata benefits, such as Christmas bonus.Though, the employer should treat the part-time workers equally but there are certainconditions under which the employer can treat the part-time workers differently, by giving areasonable justification, called as 'objective justification'. For instance, the employer candifferentiate in terms of health insurance in case he can objectively justify the same. The part-time workers can discuss the matter of unequal treatment with the employer of the trade unionrepresentative and the employer is liable to give reasonable justification for the same, in writing1

within 21 days. Further, if the worker is not satisfied with the response of the employer then hecan make a case and file to an Employment Tribunal (Dickens, 2012). Dismissal means when a contract of employment is terminated without being givennotice of or without notice, or when the fixed-term contract is concluded and is not renewed, orwhenever an employee leaves with or without giving a notice to the employer owing to hisconduct. The term unfair dismissal is described generally as the termination of the employmentcontract by the employer without any reasonable justification. The Employment Rights Act,1996 covers most of the provisions in relation to unfair dismissal of the employees. The Act,1996 under section 94provides that every employee has a right of not being unfairly dismissedby the employer. For making a case under unfair dismissal there are certain criteria which are tobe fulfilled, such as – the employee must have been dismissed, and should be an employee andnot a worker, should have been employed for a prescribed qualifying period of time, should notfall under the excluded categories, and should have filed a claim in three calendar months fromsuch dismissal (Busby, 2011). In the case of R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parteSeymour-Smith and Perez (17th February 2000) it was held that the statutory duration ofqualifying of two years was challenged on the grounds that it favours men more than the women.The Court of Appeal accepted this and as a result the qualifying period of two years was reducedin the year 1999 to one year but this was increased again in April 2012. Apart from the above referred cases the employee does not require to serve notice periodand the dismissal is considered as automatic unfair dismissal without any specific period ofqualifying time. For instance, whenever an employee is dismissed under health and safetyreasons or is dismissed for participating under the trade union activities or when the employee isenforcing any of his employment rights, etc. Whenever any employee is unfairly dismissed by the employer then such an employeecan make a claim of compensation to the Employment Tribunal. The Employment Rights Act,1996 and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, 1992 provides that theEmployment Tribunal can make a decision for reinstatement, re-engagement and compensationfor unfair dismissal. Reinstatement means that the employee is re-employed in the role orposition from which the employer had dismissed him. In the case of Chagger v Abbey NationalPLC & Hopkins (2009) the Employment Tribunal held that the dismissal of the employee on the2

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