Contract of Employment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Contract of Employment - Essay Example The intervening world wars in the first half of the 20th century put paid to any thought about advancement in the labour cause. The concept of modern day Employment Law Act began with the Equal Pay Act of 1970. It came into effect in 1972. The most prominent segment of this act was that it strengthened the efforts to bring about equality for women in the workplace (The Equal Pay Act 1970 (Amendment) Regulation 2003). Since1997 and the election of the Labour Government there have been many changes in the UK employment law. These include enhanced maternity and paternity rights, the introduction of a National Minimum Wage and the Working Time Directive which covers working time, rest breaks and the right to paid annual leave. Likewise, discrimination law has been tightened with protection from discrimination now available on the grounds of age, religion or belief and sexual orientation as well as gender, race and disability (Industrial relations under new Labour: an update). Today terms and conditions governing employer-employee relations are not as open as they ought to be and they are complex. They are lop-sided, not quite reasonable, geared to human resource development but simultaneously businesslike. The present day terms and conditions swear by natural justice, however there are disciplinary procedures, provides little scope for protection from unfair treatment, prefer counseling, and sets clear performance standards. Now terms and conditions are two different terminologies. The dictionary describes terms as "words used to define certain concept" and condition as "a stipulation" (Illustrated Oxford Dictionary). In the issue of labour, terms are concepts that describe the working relation the company has with the employee and conditions are stipulations that describe the reward or penalty for duty performed or misdemeanors committed. The United Kingdom has in place employment legislations that addresses human resources development issues and also makes it difficult for employers to carry out unfair dismissals. These legislations succinctly cover almost all nature of employment and human resource problems. However, employers hold the trump cards. Employer-employee problems Problems in employer-employee relations happen when management is primarily insensitive to human