Employment Legislation

The equal opportunities act

The equal opportunities act is a state legislation act which makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person for their gender, race or disability. This also includes religious beliefs and sexual orientation. It lays the basic rights and freedom that any one in the United Kingdom is protected. For example, if an employer has a choice of 3 different future employees and one of them is black, that makes them no different to any of the other employees and should be considered purely on how well they will work in the job.

The employment equality (age) regulations 2006

The employment equality (age) regulations 2006 were set to make it unlawful for employers to discriminate employees according to their age.  For example, employers shouldn’t take into account a future employees age even if they feel theyre age is not right for the job. It is not their choice and age shoudn’t have to be a reason not to hire someone.

Employee Rights

An employee is entitled to a statement of the terms and conditions of their employment. This includes the hours employees are expected to work, sick pay, whether job is temporary or permanent, job title and description, holiday pay, and rate of pay. Employee rights also include Right to the minimum wage, Right to rest breaks, Right to time off public duties (for example Christmas day), right to redundancy pay, and right to not be fairly dismissed.

Trade Union

A trade union is an organization made up of members (workers). Trade unions try ad develop close working relationships with employers.  Most workers join trade unions because they believe it can negotiate better pay and working conditions (this can also include holidays or improved health and safety), provide training, and are available to give help and support.

Intellectual property

Intellectual property rights are the rights given to people over their mind creations. It gives the creator a right over their creation for a certain period of time.  Intellectual property rights are divided into two main areas.

The first area is COPYRIGHT. Copyright right protects the rights of authors literary and artistic work. This includes aspects such as books, paintings, films, music and computer programs. Also protected through copyright are actors, musicians, singers and sound recordings. One of the purposes of this is to reward creative work and to make sure nobody else claims its theirs.

The second area in Intellectual property rights is INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY. Industrial property can be divided into 2 parts. The first part is the protection of signs and logos (this could distinguish goods, services or logos). For example, no other company could steal the walkers crisp logo and use it as their own. This right therefor protects consumers. The second part is the rights for other types of industrial property such as design, innovation and the creation of technology to be protected. The main purpose of this is to protect the development of new technology.