How Employment Law Has Developed Over the Past 40 Years

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Introduction

The employment sector in the United Kingdom (UK) has undergone various changes over the past forty years. The British government put employment laws in place to safeguard the rights of UK workers (Rosenbloom et al.,2017; King & Case, 2020). Failure by any employer to abide by the employee laws would attract penalties; violating employee rights in the United Kingdom quickly leads to staff appealing to employment tribunals.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, also called HASAWA, the HSWA, the HSW Act, or the 1974 Act, covers occupational safety and health measures in Great Britain. It obliges employers to ensure the health, welfare, and safety of all those within the premises. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) was set to sanction the violation of HASAWA.

Bribery Act 2010: It was designed to fight corruption at the workplace.
Data Protection Act 2018: It works alongside the Data Protection Act of 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It advocates for the proper storage of private employee information.
Working Time Regulations of 1998: Employees’ time away from work is to be respected by employers.

A clear description and assessment of employment law and various statues

Employment law is codified legislation that covers relationships between employer and employee and trade unions. In the United Kingdom (UK), many laws provide a framework of employees’ and employers’ rights. There are three primary sources of Employment Law in Wales and England: Statute Law, Common Law, and European Law. The law grants employees specific minimum legal rights, such as the right to enjoy a maximum of 12 weeks as weeks’ notice per year of service. Essentially, employment law deals with rights employees deserve at their workplaces, for example, reasonable notice before dismissal, maternal leaves for pregnant women, and time off rights for parenting (Vallas & Schor, 2020; Todolí-Signes, 2017). It has been significantly tailored, especially by the Labor Government, to encompass the right to flexible working hours.

Identification of the various acts and statutes

The following is a list of various acts and statutes which are related to employment laws and are enforced in the United Kingdom:

Employment Rights Act of 1996: It contains special rights of employees when they are away from the workplace yet still working for their respective organizations.
National Minimum Wage Act of 1998: It sets the National Minimum Wage for employees and employers in the entire United Kingdom. The government reviews it to keep it at par with factors such as inflation.
Employment Relations Act of 1999: It focuses on industrial relations. It sets a clear framework on trade union operations, their recognition, derecognition, industrial actions, and rights at work for employment unions.
The Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations of 1999: It came about as Statutory legislation governing the rights of employees for time off (McConnell, 2019).
Part-Time Workers Regulations of 2000: It prevents preferential treatment at the workplace; there is harmony and equity in workplace measures. Ideally, there is no difference in pay for workers on full-time and part-time workers.
Protection of Employment (Transfer of Undertakings) Regulations of 2006 protect existing employees’ rights and their employment contracts or promises when the company they work for undergoes a business transfer.
The Equality Act of 2010: It prevents workplace discrimination and unjust recruitment designs.
Agency Workers Regulations of 2010: It is Statutory legislation almost similar to Part-Time Workers Regulations of 2000. It requires equal treatment in pay and working hours for full-time and part-time workers alike.

An outline and description of why legislation has been introduced

Employment law legislation was introduced to control relationships between employees and their employers. Workplace regulations seek to promote fairness, equality, and justice in employment; thus, ensuring the whole process of employment, from recruitment to dismissals, is fair (Nigri et al., 2020). Intra-organizational relationships are essential in maintaining a good rapport between all organization workers (Bundy et al., 2018; Paais & PATTIRUHU, 2020). The legislation was also introduced to ensure workers are not mistreated by their employers. According to Corbett (2022), the UK government introduced workplace legislation to solve discrimination based on age, race, gender, religion, disability, bullying, employment contracts, holiday pay, and redundancy.

A critical evaluation of the reason(s) for introducing the area of law

Equality act 2010 – what is new and what has changed

Equality act came into work on the 1st of October 2010. The Equality Act protects the rights and dignity of individuals so that people live harmoniously in society.

Race discrimination

Equality act protects on from racial discrimination by making laws that prohibit the act. Equality act 2010 was introduced because people of African descent were denied privileges because of their skin color.

Gender reassignment

The members of the LGBTQ community should not be discriminated against. According to Batool (2020), the Equality Act 2010 protects individuals who want to live a different gender from the one they were assigned at birth. According to the equality act 2010, one does not need to undergo surgery to assume any gender because gender is an identity that starts from the mind.

Age

Equality acts 2010 provides laws against the discrimination of an individual on the grounds of age. The equality act separates the age of the child from the age of an adult. Young adults are not to be discriminated against for performing other duties.

The way that HR departments have adopted these pieces of legislation

It is illegal to deny someone a job because they have a disability. In many firms since 2010, there has been a well-organized department of disability. Gender discrimination has been rendered illegal, and harsh consequences await the offenders. Several companies and government offices have a department of gender. Gender equity and equality are championed in most institutions. All this has been achieved by the adoption of the equality act 2010.

Impact of these pieces of legislation

These pieces of legislation are of great importance to individual workers, employee unions, and employers. Employers disregarded some employment laws for their profit. Employment laws were a tool of protection for employees against their more powerful employers; thus, protecting them from numerous threats from their employers (Gebhardt, 2019). Notable employment laws include the minimum wage, discrimination, child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and workplace safety and health laws.

Particular employment laws prevent discrimination at the workplace from occurring. Ideally, they protect workers against discrimination that their employers could mitigate. The laws protect workers against discrimination based on color, sex, disability or national affiliation, genetic information, citizenship status, religion, and age (Vornholt et al., 2018). Most legal protections and rights emanate from federal and state employment laws, especially regarding companies having capacities of at least fifteen employees.

Employment laws also have provisions for minimum wage and remuneration for a job done. Previously, before the government set minimum wage regulations, employers had the discretion to decide what to pay their employees (Augustine, 2019). The Great Depression worsened the situation since employers paid their workers wages that could not sustain their families’ basic needs. The United States of America, for instance, set its first federal minimum wage in 1938 due to low wages.

The laws have also improved general workplace safety and health. The government regulates workplace safety, not only physically but also health-wise (Orazulike, 2018). Before the government intervened in workplace safety and health, many challenges faced workers daily (Tang, 2020; Szeman & O’Brien, 2017). However, the regulation and coordination of the work safety employment laws were uneven (Weber et al., 2021). Generally, these statutes cater to unsafe work conditions, electric hazards, temperature moderations, recurrent workplace injuries, long work hours, and biochemical hazards.

Employment laws also cover child labor, especially regarding the fundamental rights of the children at the workplace. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed The Fair Labor Standards Act into law, thus safeguarding the workplace environment of the children. Children between ages five and six worked in dangerous workplaces where even adults could not work (Unicef, 2020). The child labor statutes inform minimum working obligations for children in many industries other than agriculture.

Compensation for workers is also considered in employment laws in the UK. Workers’ compensation insurance covers work-related injuries medical expenses (Baron, 2018; Boštjančič & Slana, 2018). The insurance also ensures the worker is paid partial wages even as they recover from their injury. Employers who do not subscribe to insurance covers are responsible for all their employees’ injuries. When employers neglect their duty to compensate the employees, the law requires that the workers sue them.

Description and critical analysis of individual employment legislation and their Impact

Individual employment legislation covers what employees are mandated to do at the workplace, their freedoms and rights, what duties they owe their employers, and what employers are allowed to ask them to do. It contains statutory obligations that are enforceable by employment tribunals. Essentially, individual employment legislation covers discrimination based on race, religion, gender, origin, status, income, or disability.

Individual employment legislations often result in both benefits and disadvantages to the employees and the organization as a whole. For instance, small-scale entrepreneurial ventures, especially informal management practices, can hardly initiate penalties for workplace misconduct (Kaufman, 2020). They fear that imposing sanctions will demotivate employees and lower their general productivity. The essence of employment laws is regulation; as such, the organizations must fulfill them completely. In contrast, employment laws offer many benefits to the workplace, not only to employers but also to the organization and the employees. It ensures the organization runs smoothly, with the roles of all employees well-defined. The employer has an easy time relating with their workers, for the employment legislation guides their relationship. The organization benefits from these legislations by complying with government regulation, thus minimal government sanctions.

The positive and negative impacts of employment law in HR departments

Employment law affects organizations’ Human Resource (HR) departments differently; it has positive and negative impacts. The employment law particularly affects the HR department since it handles workers’ welfare in the workplace environment. Positive impacts include employees’ protection from discrimination and manipulation by employer power. Law protects employees from distortion of their payroll, safety, equality rights, working hours, and holiday freedoms. In addition, the HR adoption and compliance with employment law give the employees a chance to be educated on their rights and responsibilities and channels of reporting violations (Marlina et al., 2021). On the other hand, other than employment law ensuring social justice and proper workplace relationships, it also has disadvantages. For instance, it leads to a strained relationship between the management and the workers when the management enforces regulations on the employees who do not agree with them (Tennant et al., 2017; Ahammad, 2017). The employers perceive some employment law statutes to be a means of downplaying them, to favor the workers. Nevertheless, the employment law plays a great role in developing effective acceptable HR policies despite several disadvantages.

How effective was employment law for the HR department?

The employment law was effective for the HR department since it ensured the order of human resource operations. Essentially, it manages all employee-employer relationships in terms of business practices and corporate policies. It protects employees from discrimination at the workplace and oppression by employers who would take advantage of workers in the absence of employment legislation (Benson et al., 2018). It covers the processes of recruitment, whistleblowing, hiring, firing, workplace health and safety, medical leaves, and fairness in remuneration. The employment law generally helped the HR department have ease in handling employment relations effectively.

Alternatives to employment law

Employment law includes several aspects such as at-will employment, redundancy, and termination. Contract employment is the best alternative to at-will employment. Contracts are regarded as legally binding, especially when implied, though some are written. Redundancy is part of employment law’s special considerations that can be made under unique circumstances (Rudolph et al., 2021). Alternatives to redundancy include: reduction in working time, job retention schemes, periods of unpaid leave, lay off or short-time working, flexible working, implementing pay cuts or pay freezes, provision of sabbatical leaves, retraining, and redeploying of staff, and withdrawing job offers or postponing new starts. According to Sigala (2020), alternatives to termination include geographic relocation, change in duties and responsibilities, change of title, offering alternative employment, merging various roles, and increasing or decreasing remuneration and performance targets.

Conclusion

Employment law covers the relationship between employers and employees at the workplace; therefore, regulating workplace ethics. In the United Kingdom (UK), the employment law has evolved to its current complex state. For the past 40 years, the UK government has approved state legislation that enhances workplace relations. The law deals with employer-employee relationships and workplace processes such as hiring and firing, child labor, workplace safety, medical cover, general workplace welfare, and remuneration. Ideally, employment legislation was introduced to promote fairness, equity, and justice at the workplace to redress oppression and employer abuse of power. It has many advantages to the workplace; for example, it regulates how employers handle the employees and ensures proper coordination of workplace activities; thus, maintaining order. In contrast, it has disadvantages such as strained employer-employee relations. Nevertheless, employment law has addressed many workplace challenges such as discrimination of employees; therefore, it is fundamental to the success of any organization.

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