Law & Justic

Archive for the ‘Law & justice’ Category

It is hard to figure out for me why I suddenly I needed to assess what has been happening to my life which has been on a spiral downwards eversince I was laid off from work. I could not accept that fact and it led me to a depression which rendered me unable to think well and even preventing me from looking for another work which was bad as I needed a source of income to pay for my bills. Good thing my mother was kind enough to help me out this first month, but something had to happen I know. My mom actually called some champaign lawyers she knew as she heard my story of how I got laid off and she felt something was not right and that the company maybe violating some laws in the way they did my unjust firing. She said that these champaign lawyers can help determine if the company did something to violate working laws and if the company really did, we could sue them as this really led to a very bad situation for me where I spiralled into depression and left me incapable of working for the more than 2 months now. Hopefully, with this case I have now and the help of good lawyers to back me up, I can get my life back on track and also, get some justice at the way I was handled by my old company which is something I don’t want them doing to other people.

Are you looking for more information on labor laws? If so, you have come to the right place. Throughout this article we will discuss what labor laws are, as well as discuss the different individual laws included within labor law.

Let’s begin by discussing what these types of laws are. Labor laws are a set of legal rules that address the rights and restrictions of working individuals and their organizations. They are divided into two categories; collective and individual. Let’s take a look at each of these categories in more detail.

Collective laws refer to those labor laws that regulate the relationship between employee, employer, and unions. Within collective labor laws, there are 5 sub-categories. These include laws on trade unions, strikes, pickets, and workplace involvement. Trade unions laws, required in some countries, require unions to follow particular procedures before taking specified actions. Strike laws are laws that indicate when a strike is legal and when a strike is not legal. Picketing, a tactic used during strikes to make a the presence of strikers known, also has several legal guidelines that must be followed. Workplace involvement refers to the idea that employers must consult their workers if any issues should arise within the company.

Individual labor laws refer to the rights that employees have at work. These laws include things such as contract of employment, minimum wage, working time, health and safety, anti-discrimination, and unfair dismissal. Let’s take a brief look at each of these in more detail.

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The Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) have been introduced to protect “vulnerable” workers from exploitation by way of low pay or fewer employment rights than permanent workers. It is European legislation drawn up in Brussels where there is a much smaller flexible workforce than in the UK. Basically the legislation states that after 12 weeks on the same site (or at the same place of work) the agency (or temporary worker) is entitled to mostly the same hourly rate of pay and holiday entitlement as the permanent worker doing the same job.

The legislation doesn’t define “vulnerable” and so it applies to absolutely any agency or temp worker whether you are a labourer or a doctor.

As is always the case in the UK, we don’t know what this means legally until the first cases have been heard at tribunal, once judgement is made on a few cases we may have a better understanding of what is deemed a “vulnerable” worker.

Many temporary workers receive a higher hourly rate than their permanent equivalent and so do not necessarily gain anything from the legislation, although they may get a less favourable holiday entitlement. We will have to wait until a judge has decided if higher pay but fewer holiday’s breaches the AWR.

Some low paid, unskilled workers, the people the legislation is intended to protect should be concerned. Within the construction industry for example there is no inclination to increase pay rates of unskilled workers and there is plenty of supply in this area of employment. In this sector the thought is that end user clients will just dispense with the services of agency workers on 12 weeks service and request replacements. As long as the same person doesn’t get sent to the job again they will not be in breach of AWR. The legislation that was intended to protect these workers will actually be a detriment.

The definition of a temporary work agency has a wider scope in the AWR legislation and includes not just employment agencies (or work finders) but intermediaries such as Umbrella Companies and Offshore service providers.

AWR states that the genuinely self-employed are out of scope and the regulations do not apply, however in English law there is a type of person called a “worker” who is neither an employee, not genuinely self-employed. They can provide their services in a self employed capacity for tax reasons, but are considered a worker for employment law purposes.

In the past few months there have been many “solution providers” advertising their services as taking people out of AWR by making them self-employed. This will not work but agencies and end clients do seem to be falling for the ruse. The vast majority of these solutions are based on what is written in a contract but as we know from the case of Autoclenz v Belcher and Others, Employment Tribunals look past the written contracts and at the actual real world relationship to determine whether someone is an employee, a worker or genuinely self employed. If a person turns up on a site as they have been requested to do by name and they are instructed on what to do and how to do it, they are not going to be considered to be self-employed for the purposes of AWR.

Beware of these schemes and viewing them as a magic elixir.