United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK can rely upon a minimum set of employment rights, which are found in Acts of Parliament, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £9.50 for over-23-year-olds from April 2022 under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempt to limit long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995.
In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is, in effect, a termination. For example, when an employer places extraordinary and unreasonable work demands on an employee to obtain their resignation, this can constitute a constructive dismissal.
Sir Patrick Elias, PC, is a retired Lord Justice of Appeal.
Nethermere Ltd v Gardiner And Another [1984] ICR 612 is a UK labour law case in the Court of Appeal in the field of home work and vulnerable workers. Many labour and employment rights, such as unfair dismissal, in Britain depend on one's status as an "employee" rather than being "self-employed", or some other "worker". This case stands for the proposition that where "mutuality of obligation" between employers and casual or temporary workers exists to offer work and accept it, the court will find that the applicant has a "contract of employment" and is therefore an employee.
Allonby v Accrington & Rossendale College (2004) C-256/01 is a European Union law case concerning the right of men and women to equal pay for work of equal value under Article 141 of the Treaty of the European Community.
United Kingdom agency worker law refers to the law which regulates people's work through employment agencies in the United Kingdom. Though statistics are disputed, there are currently between half a million and one and a half million agency workers in the UK, and probably over 17,000 agencies. As a result of judge made law and absence of statutory protection, agency workers have more flexible pay and working conditions than permanent staff covered under the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Implied terms in English law are default rules for contracts on points where the terms which contracting parties expressly choose are silent, or mandatory rules which operate to override terms that the parties may have themselves chosen. The purpose of implied terms is often to supplement a contractual agreement in the interest of making the deal effective for the purpose of business, to achieve fairness between the parties or to relieve hardship.
Luke v Stoke-on-Trent City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 761 is a UK labour law case, concerning the test for an implied term.
Mutual trust and confidence is a phrase used in English law, particularly with reference to contracts in UK labour law, to refer to the obligations owed in an employment relationship between the employer and the worker.
An employment contract in English law is a specific kind of contract whereby one person performs work under the direction of another. The two main features of a contract is that work is exchanged for a wage, and that one party stands in a relationship of relative dependence, or inequality of bargaining power. On this basis, statute, and to some extent the common law, requires that compulsory rights are enforceable against the employer.
McMeechan v Secretary of State for Employment[1996] EWCA Civ 1166 is a UK labour law case concerning the scope of protection for people to employment rights. It took the view that an agency worker did have an employment contract for the purpose of claiming for unpaid wages on an employer's insolvency.
Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher [2011] UKSC 41 is a landmark UK labour law and English contract law case decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, concerning the scope of statutory protection of rights for working individuals. It confirmed the view, also taken by the Court of Appeal, that the relative bargaining power of the parties must be taken into account when deciding whether a person counts as an employee, to get employment rights. As Lord Clarke said,
the relative bargaining power of the parties must be taken into account in deciding whether the terms of any written agreement in truth represent what was agreed and the true agreement will often have to be gleaned from all the circumstances of the case, of which the written agreement is only a part. This may be described as a purposive approach to the problem.
Cable & Wireless plc v Muscat [2006] EWCA Civ 220 is a UK labour law case, concerning the test for an implied contract between an employee and a place they work through an employment agency. It holds that with reference to the reality of the relationship, an implied contract should be found according to the ordinary rules of construction.
Dacas v Brook Street Bureau (UK) Ltd [2004] EWCA Civ 217 is a UK labour law case, concerning the employment rights of agency workers.
Muschett v H M Prison Service [2010] EWCA Civ 25 is a UK labour law case, which held that an agency worker had no right to claim discrimination from either the agency or the place of work.
Transco plc v O'Brien[2002] EWCA Civ 379 is a UK labour law case concerning the contract of employment.
Lawson v Serco Ltd [2006] UKHL 3 is a UK labour law case, concerning the test for when workers are covered by employment rights when they work abroad.
Hall v Woolston Hall Leisure Ltd [2000] EWCA Civ 170 is a UK labour law case, concerning the illegality in the contract of employment.
Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5 is a landmark case in UK labour law and company law on employment rights. The UK Supreme Court held the transport corporation, Uber, must pay its drivers the national living wage, and at least 28 days paid holidays, from the time that drivers log onto the Uber app, and are willing and able to work. The Supreme Court decision was unanimous, and upheld the Court of Appeal, Employment Appeal Tribunal, and Employment Tribunal. The Supreme Court, and all courts below, left open whether the drivers are also employees but indicated that the criteria for employment status was fulfilled, given Uber's control over drivers.
Stringfellow Restaurants Ltd v Quashie [2012] EWCA Civ 1735 is a UK labour law case concerning employment status.
