3.7 Employment law

• Employment law


  Regulations and rules put in place to protect workers from employers who may treat them unfairly
• Discrimination


  Treating one worker differently to another for no acceptable reason - illegal
• The Equality Act 2010


  A person cannot be treated differently based on grounds of gender , race , ethnicity , disability , sexual orientation , religion or beliefs
• A business must not

  • pay workers differently for same work
  • favour certain types of people when recruiting
  • discriminate when promoting or training workers or making them redundant
  • allow workers to be mistreated by other workers
• A business that discriminates may find:

  • staff become less motivated - affects performance of business
  • workers leave so must recruit
  • develops poor reputation - reduce sales and affect recruitment
  • can be fined and made to pay compensation by employees
• A business that takes actions to stop discrimination may find:

  • Increases costs
  • Needs to rewrite recruitment and training policies to prevent discrimination
  • Needs to monitor what goes on in the business to prevent discrimination
• Contract of employment


  Legal agreement between employer and employee , makes clear what worker employed to do and pay and conditions that business gives worker
• A statement of employment particulars


  Part of a contract of employment , gives details of terms of employment - must be given within 8 weeks of starting work
• All workers entitled to?

  Holidays each year, depending on hours per week. Normally can't do more than 48 hours but exceptions. Can choose to opt out of legal restriction.
• Effects of contract of employment to all workers

  • increased costs bcs business may need to employ extra to cover workers who on holiday or can only work limited no of hours
  • managing staff holidays to ensure always enough workers to do the work