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Employment Legislation

Introduction

Employment legislation in the UK is handled by the Employment Relations Directorate of the Department of Trade and industry (DTI). The Directorate develops legislation in areas such as hours of work, pay entitlement, individual employment rights, redundancy arrangements, trade unions and collective rights, employee consultation and public holidays. It also negotiates and implements European employment directives.

How can I find out what the law says?

The Employment Relations Directorate Home Page leads directly to all the relevant government publications on a particular topic. Click on "individual employment rights", for instance, and dozens of publications become available covering subjects such as contracts of employment, the Working Time Regulations, part-time and full-time work, parental leave, fairness at work, unfair dismissal, itemised pay statements and your rights if you work on Sundays or in a betting shop.

The DTI is also developing TIGER (Tailored Interactive Guidance on Employment Rights) to provide a user-friendly guide to employment law.

A number of other websites provide very accessible information about employment rights, for example Monster, in collaboration with CompactLaw. The Employment Law section of LEGAL SERVICES SHOP.COM gives helpful information presented in an informal style about a wide range of topics, including your obligations as an employee and your position with regard to copyrights and patents.

Problems - and how to avoid them

Preventing and resolving problems between employers and their workforces is the core business of ACAS, the publicly funded Arbitration, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. ACAS offers impartial information and advice (including tips for workers who have employment problems) and produces a downloadable set of publications covering areas like job evaluation, personnel records for small firms and varying contracts of employment.

ACAS runs a network of telephone helplines as well arbitrating on complaints, in a bid to avoid expensive referral to an employment tribunal. Workshops and seminars designed to encourage people to work together effectively are also organised.

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