UK Employment Law\ Employee \ Terms of Contract
Employment terms
An employment contract tells you what both you and your employer have to do to fulfil the employment contract. Without such a written agreement, you would be legally accepting an employer’s terms by starting work. The deal does not have to be in writing unless it is for an apprenticeship. An employment contract’s terms can be in writing, spoken, or implied. There are some cases where your agreement is a mixture of all three.
If you are given an agreement, then be aware there are also likely to be a set of ‘implied’ terms. These tend to be fairly obvious (ie: taking reasonable instructions from your boss). Without such implied terms, employing you would become unworkable in many cases.
Express terms
These are explicitly agreed between you and your employer:
- amount of wages (including overtime and bonuses);
- working and overtime hours;
- holiday pay;
- sick pay
- redundancy pay
- how much notice must be given for dismissal.
Because a contract will still exist even without being written down, anything said to you by your future employer about your rights should be recorded.
Statement of particulars.
If you are employed in excess of a month, you should be given a written contract listing the main particulars. It does not have to cover every facet of a full contract, but should provide important evidence regarding terms and conditions of employment. This has to be done within two months of the date employment starts.
Breach of the contract.
Failure to abide by the terms of an employment contract can bring about a legal breach.
When talking about ‘breach of contract’, there is often much emphasis placed on what you can do wrong that can cause a breach, and thereby a dismissal. However, your employer must also be aware that the breach can occur through his or her actions, or inaction, too.
When your employer commits a breach, there are two avenues open to you:
- accept the breach and move on;
- do not accept the breach and resign.
If you accept a breach made by your employer and continue to work for him/her, there are still further courses of action that you may pursue. You are entitled to seek compensation from your employer. In such circumstances, you are likely to seek either advice and help from a solicitor and/or union.
Your employer can breach an employment contract in a number of ways:
- failure to pay your wages or salary;
- failure to pay the agreed level of wages or salary;
- Harassing you;
- Bullying you;
- Bringing false misconduct allegations;
- Altering terms of your employment;
- Making a major change to the location of your place of work, without giving you due notice
|
