Employment Law Assessment Activity: Lawful Treatment of Staff Q&A

This Q&A covers topics related to the Health and Safety at Work Act, personal injury claims, implied duties in the contract of employment, and freedom of association in employment.

Employment law (EML) assessment activity
2 template
Lawful treatment of staff Q&A
Name:
Word count:
Q1 200
Q2 200
Q3 500
Q4 250

Q1 Identify 3 requirements of The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) 1974.
The health and safety at the workplace can be ruled by the common law and
legislation as every employer has the duty to take care in order to ensure that its
employees are safe while working. There are many requirements which is listed by
health and Safety at Work Act which are illustrated below-
 The employer must carry out the risk assessment and also determine what
mental or physical harm can happen potentially to workforce if something is
not completed as per certain standards. For example, an employer must ensure
that clan water is provided for consumption and the hygienic toilets are
available for the use.
 There must be health and safety policy being established and maintained
which is relevant to company and must be placed where there is visibility to
workforce (Freire and Bernardes, 2021).
 The Risk assessment must be carried out and it must include Display Screen
Equipment. The assessment must be carried out on any person who is using
computer screen. However, if the assessment is made in past and
circumstances of employees have changed, then the organisation must carry
out one more assessment so that it can ensure that everything is covered and
the employee is removed from any potential harm, wherever possible.
Section 1 of the Health and Safety at Work Act provides for the three requirements to
it includes the following-
 Securing health, welfare and safety of the persons at work: It is the duty of
the employer to make sure that it takes necessary steps in order to secure the
health and safety and welfare of its employees. These can include such as to
put the sign of danger when there is any repairing work being done near lift or
staircase, or keeping the safety board when the wet floor is being cleaned or
sweep.
 Protecting other within premises who do not work: It is the duty of
employer to make sure that the safety measures are taken even for the visitors,
clients or other person who do not work in premises. For example, the
employer can place the safety mark at necessary location of premises so that
the people gets aware to be alert.

 Controlling the use and keep of explosive or the highly inflammable
dangerous substances: When any business deals in dangerous substances, the
employer must make sure that it keeps the possession of it in proper manner
and take necessary steps to ensure that no harm is caused to anyone from it
(Health and safety at work Act, 1974).
The employer must make sure that it protects the health and safety of its
workforce and also ensure that there are adequate facilities of welfare for the people
who work. These include provision of the drinking water, resting as well as eating
facilities, accommodation and sanitary and washing facilities to all employees for use.
The facilities should be well ventilated, lit and of the reasonable room temperature
and in working and clean position.
Q2 Give 2 examples of where an employee might make a personal injury claim.
The personal injury cases are brought if an employee have suffered any illness
or injury due to any negligence of other. It includes making claim against negligent
party in order to redeem the financial compensation in order to aid recovery of victim,
cover its losses and future earnings. There are many health and safety regulations
which protect the employees at work from personal injury. Personal injury can be
referred to as the type of injury which is sustained in an accident. It is basically in
legal sense, an injury to the mind, body and emotions. Two examples when the
employee can bring the claim of personal injury includes the following-
Discrimination:
It is illegal and against the law to treat an individual different on the basis of
what is called as protective characteristics. At work, it can be in the form of dismissal.
The protective characteristics include age, disability, sex, race, colour, etc. (Duraj,
2020). When the employee is subject to the discrimination which may also include
victimisation or harassment at workplace, its effect on individual may be serious. For
many of the employees, these type of situation can bring negative impact on their
mental well-being and health which can result in anxiety and depression. If a person
proves personal injury has stemmed out from discriminatory action, the personal
injury claim can be brought together with claim for the discrimination. In one of the
case, 89 year old NHS secretary become the oldest person in UK who won the age
discrimination claim. The superiors at hospital fired her and claimed that she was
struck in old secretarial ways and that she has demonstrated the catastrophic failure in

the performance. But Eileen was fired as she was unable to use the modern computer.
ET found that there was the evidence that claimant has not received any training so it
was discrimination on the basis of age and she suffered personal injury due to age
discrimination.
Personal injury claims due to accident:
Every employer has the duty to protect its workforce from any harm or injury
and convey about the safety and health issues which may affect it. When an employee
have suffered any serious work related diseases, accident and dangerous incidents, the
employer must report the same to Health and Safety department at the local authority.
And if the employer does not report the same, the employee may bring the claim for
the compensation for the injury suffered by it during the work. The claim can be
brought when employer was at fault. For example, there was a sudden broke of the lift
when an employee was using and it resulted in serious injury to it. The employee may
bring the claim for the personal injury caused due to accident and employer was
aware of the fault in lift and did nothing to prevent the accident (Claessens and Ueda,
2020).
Q3 Explain the following implied duties in the contract of employment
Employment contract comprises of terms and conditions of the working
between the employer and employee. There are many rights and duties enumerated in
this which must be obeyed by the employer as well as the employees. The implied
duties includes the following-
 Duty of care: There must be duty of employer in different to take of the
employees. It includes firstly to take the reasonable care for the health and
safety of the employees. It provides that an employer should ensure that the
mental and physical health of the employee is taken care of at the time of
employment. It also includes the duty to provide the reasonable and safe
working environment. Every employer has to duty to offer safe system of the
work together with safe workplace. Secondly, there is implied duty of the
employer to have reasonable care while giving reference. If the employer do
not provide the reference to the third party, that employer have the duty
towards employee who is a subject to reference. When providing reference,
the employee should ensure that it is accurate (Morgenroth, 2018). True and
fair and it must lead to any unfair or misleading impression on overall basis.

Additionally, there is the implied term an information on the basis of which it
is made must be verified and complied with the reasonable care.
 Mutual confidence and trust: This duty depicts that there must be mutual
trust and confidence among the employees and employer. It is cited by those
workers who claims to have been dismissed constructively. An employer
should not conduct itself in such a way that it will likely to damage or destroy
its relationship with employees. Some examples of this include verbal or
physical abuse, imposing unfair conditions, sexual harassment, etc. Any such
conduct which affects the employer, employee relationship will result in
breach of contractual term that may result in constructive dismissal.
 Duty to provide the employee with reasonably competent fellow
employees: It is the non-delegable duty of the employer to select the
competent and proper employees and give them with proper resources and
materials for working and also have duty to operate the safe working system.
There must be competent fellow workers given to the employees so that they
all can work effectively as a team in order to achieve their basic objectives and
goals (van Caenegem, 2021).
Apart from implied duties, there are many express terms which are enumerated in
the employment contract. These include the working hours of employee, holidays,
monthly salary, reporting manager and many others. These terms make it easy for the
employee to work. It also comprises of the notice period which an employee has to
serve before it leaves the job.
Q4 Explain freedom of association in employment and how it may manifest itself.
The right to freedom of association is a fundamental right to the labours. It is
an enabling right that entitles the worker to join and form the worker's organization on
their own choice so that common interest of organization is promoted. For the
workers, it is meant as facilitating a realisation of the further rights rather than the
right in the itself. It protects the right of employees to associate, which includes to
hold meetings and the demonstrations with the other people. On personal level, this
right protects the choice of person to enter into the relationships with other
individuals.

At workplace, freedom of associations is aimed to protect the employees and
offers right to debate, unionise and also collectively protest and bargain. The
authorities have duty to protect the members and make sure that they are able to
exercise their right to form assembly and also bargain in a collective manner for the
change in workplace (Halteh and et. al., 2018).
The Human Rights Act of 1998 provides for the freedom to form the
associations under Article 11. It provides that every individual has the right to form
and be the part of the trade union or any political party or other association or the
voluntary groups. No other person can force other to join the trade union, political
part or other association. In the case of Sdiropoulos and other v. Greece, the court
held that the right to form the association is inherent part of right to freedom of
association even if the Article 11 of HR act makes only express reference to right to
form the trade unions. Another case is Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers
and Firemen v. United Kingdom, the worker or employee must be free to join or not
to join the trade union without being sanction or subject to the disincentives.
REFERENCES
Claessens, S. and Ueda, K., 2020. Basic Employment Protection, Bargaining Power,
and Economic Outcomes. Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting. 5(2).
pp.179-229.
Duraj, T., 2020. The Limits of Expansion of Labour Law to Non-labour Forms of
Employment—Comments de lege lata and de lege ferenda. In News Forms of
Employment (pp. 15-31). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Freire, B.S. and Bernardes, F., 2021. THE ANTICIPATION OF EVIDENCE IN
BRAZILIAN LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT PROCEDURAL
LAW/PRODUCAO ANTECIPADA DE PROVAS NO PROCESSO DO
TRABALHO EARLY PRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE IN BRAZILIAN
LABOR LAW. Revista Eletrônica de Direito Processual. 22(1). pp.122-147.
Halteh, J. and et. al., 2018. The impact of technology on employment: a research
agenda for New Zealand and beyond. Labour & Industry: a journal of the
social and economic relations of work. 28(3). pp.203-216.
Morgenroth, S., 2018. Employment Contracts and Further Legal Sources. In Key
aspects of German employment and labour law (pp. 37-44). Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg.
van Caenegem, W., 2021. Knowledge mobility, trade secrets and non-competes:
lessons from the common law tradition. In Research Handbook on
Intellectual Property and Employment Law. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Online
Health and safety at work Act, 1974 [Online] Available Through
<https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/contents>