Employment Law Report: UK Employment Law, HASAWA, Duties, Association

This report provides a comprehensive overview of UK employment law, examining the Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) 1974, personal injury claims, and implied duties within employment contracts. It identifies three key requirements of the HASAWA Act, discusses examples of personal injury claims, including those related to discrimination, and explains implied duties such as duty of care, mutual trust and confidence, and the provision of reasonably competent fellow employees. Furthermore, the report details the concept of freedom of association in employment, as outlined in the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, and how it manifests itself through trade unions and worker associations. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of the HASAWA Act in ensuring a safe workplace and the significance of employee rights and contract duties in the employment relationship.

INTRODUCTION
The employment law is a regulatory framework that governs the relationship of employer and
employees in United kingdom. The main objective of the employment law is to maintain a balance
between the employer and the employee in order to run the business effectively and efficiently. It
also provides various rights to the employees to protect them from any sort of discrimination or any
other kind of unlawful activities. It imposes duties on the employer as well so as to protect the
interest of the employees(Azmi Ahmad and Kamil, 2020). The report will determine the
requirements of the HASAWA Act 1974 and will also discuss the duties which are to be mentioned
under the employment contract. Further it explain the freedom of association in context of
employment law.
MAIN BODY
Assessment Activity 2
Identify 3 requirements of The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) 1974.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974(HASAWA) plays a very important role in the employment
law of the country. It renders safe and healthy working environment to the employees working in
the organization irrespective of the place where the business enterprise is situated. This regulation
not only covers the employees but it also covers the temporary staff, self- employed people and the
visitors or guests of the company. The enforcement of the above act is done by the Health and
Safety Executives who are nominated by the government of United Kingdom. The three major
requirements of this act are as follows-
 The workplace or the organization in which the employees work, must provide a safe and
healthy environment to carry out the business activities. The first and the foremost
requirement is to provide well equipped premises which must include fire safety, clean
cabins, proper management of waste, etc(Chung and Vander Horst, 2020).
 The organization must provide safe assistance in terms of various equipments like
computers and other electronic gadgets. They are required to be maintained at regular
intervals of time by the highly trained and responsible technical staff. This will ensure the
safety of the employees or the workers in the organization.
 The business organization requires to adopt the preventive measures in order to minimize or
eliminate the risk factor in the organization. For example- setting fire extinguishers or fire
alarms and fire exits in the organization so that if any case, fire turns out in the office

premises, it could be controlled by using these measures(Frølich, et.al, 2018).
Give 2 examples of where an employee might make a personal injury claim. One of your examples
should relate to discrimination.
Personal injury claim can be defined as the claims to which the plaintiff or the aggrieved party is
entitled to get against the person because of whom the harm is suffered by the former. The harm is
not done to the property but it is done to the mind, emotions, and to individual's body. The examples
of personal injury in terms of employment are, harm suffered by the employee or the worker while
performing any dangerous or hazardous activity in the course of employment and when the
necessary preventive measures are not being taken by the organization to obviate that risk. For
example- lost the eyesight after a chemical explosion in a laboratory while testing. But basically the
employee can bring the claim before the Employment Tribunal regarding personal injury when the
claim is associated with discrimination. That is when the person in the capacity of an employee
being treated irregularly or unlawfully by the employer then it will amounts to discrimination. For
example- discrimination based on age, sex, religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. in terms
of promotion, recruitment, training, dismissal, etc. Discriminatory claim also includes
victimizatio0n and harassment at the workplace. This might affect the mental well-being of the
employee(Joseph and Namitha, 2021).
Explain the following implied duties in the contract of employment.
The employment law acts as a governing body in order to maintain a balance among the employer
and the employees working in the organization. Both the employer and the employees are obligated
to perform the responsibilities on their parts. But the employer is required to take more care in
performing their duties to avoid any kind of legal consequences in the future. Some of them are
mentioned below-
 Duty of care- the employer posses the duty of care towards the employees or the
workers in order to prevent them from any harm or damage related to bodily injury
and psychological injury. For example- if the organization is involved in any kind of
hazardous or dangerous activity, then it is the duty of the employer to adopt certain
measures in order to protect the employees or workers from the risk of getting
injured. The employer must not discriminate the employees in any manner which can
cause emotional or mental injury to the employee(Karpuz Luo Xiao and Zhao,
2021).
 Mutual trust and confidence- it is one of the most important aspect in terms of duties

which should be performed by the employer as well as the employees towards each
other. Both of them are required to build trust and confidence towards each other. For
example- the employer must not provide any kind of personal details of the
employees to any other person and the same applies to the employees also. They
should not reveal any secrets of the organization to the outsiders for personal
benefits.
 Duty to provide the employee with reasonably competent fellow employees – the
employer is duty bound to provide a healthy working environment to the employees.
It also covers competent fellow colleagues. The employer should maintain the
discipline by removing or not appointing toxic personalities in the organizations. For
example- it is not important that always the employer is being involved in
harassment, victimization and discriminatory acts, the fellow employees can also get
indulged in such activities(Sánchez, et.al , 2020).
Explain freedom of association in employment and how it may manifest itself.
Freedom of association basically means to form any kind of group or union in order to place their
discussions to promote and protect the interests of the people associated with the groups. Article 11
of Human Rights Act 1998, states that every individual holds the right to form any kind of
association excluding any sort of arms and ammunitions without hampering the social security to
prevent the rights and interests of the members of association. In context with employment law, the
employees or the workers posses the right to form the trade unions or workers association in order
to represent their choices and issues if they are facing regarding any rules and regulations, work
culture, working environment of the organization or the industry. The Employment Rights Act 1996
and Trade Union and labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 provides right to form associations
to the employees and workers at the workplace in order to negotiate with the employers in terms of
any problems faced by the workers(Waring, 2019).

CONCLUSION
The conclusion drawn from the above report is that the HASAWA Act ensures healthy and safety
environment at workplace. It also discussed the concept of personal injury claim and the duties
which is required to be mentioned in the employment contract in order to avoid any further
consequences. It also talks about the right to form an association by the employees or workers so as
to address their rights and interests before the employers.

REFERENCES
Azmi, R., Ahmad, S.N.S. and Kamil, B.A.M., 2020. MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AT
WORKPLACE: AN OVERVIEW OF LAW AND POLICY IN MALAYSIA AND
UNITED KINGDOM (UK). health, 5(21).
Chung, H. and Van der Horst, M., 2020. Flexible working and unpaid overtime in the UK: The role
of gender, parental and occupational status. Social Indicators Research, 151(2), pp.495-
520.
Frølich, N., et.al , 2018. Academic career structures in Europe: perspectives from Norway,
Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria and the UK.
Joseph, A.A. and Namitha, K.L., 2021. Labour Regualations In Health Workforce–A Critical
Analysis.
Karpuz, A., Luo, D., Xiao, R. and Zhao, H., 2021. The Impact of Labor Protection Laws on the
Relation between Leverage and Wage. Available at SSRN 3883419.
Sánchez-Monedero, J., Dencik, L. and Edwards, L., 2020, January. What does it mean to'solve'the
problem of discrimination in hiring? Social, technical and legal perspectives from the UK
on automated hiring systems. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness,
accountability, and transparency (pp. 458-468).
Waring, A., 2019. The five pillars of occupational safety & health in a context of authoritarian
socio-political climates. Safety science, 117, pp.152-163.