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European Union law is a system of rules operating within the member states of the European Union. Since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community following World War II, the EU has developed the aim to "promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples". The EU has political institutions, social and economic policies, which transcend nation states for the purpose of cooperation and human development. According to its Court of Justice the EU represents "a new legal order of international law".
United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK can rely upon a minimum charter 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.
Francis Arthur Cockfield, Baron Cockfield, PC, was by turns a civil servant, a company director, a Conservative politician, and a European Commissioner. He served as Minister of State at the Treasury from 1979 to 1982, as Secretary of State for Trade from 1982 until 1983, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1983 until 1984, and a member of the European Commission from 1984 to 1988. He is known as 'The Father of the Single Market'.
Unfair dismissal in the United Kingdom is the part of UK labour law that requires fair, just and reasonable treatment by employers in cases where a person's job could be terminated. The Employment Rights Act 1996 regulates this by saying that employees are entitled to a fair reason before being dismissed, based on their capability to do the job, their conduct, whether their position is economically redundant, on grounds of a statute, or some other substantial reason. It is automatically unfair for an employer to dismiss an employee, regardless of length of service, for becoming pregnant, or for having previously asserted certain specified employment rights. Otherwise, an employee must have worked for two years. This means an employer only terminates an employee's job lawfully if the employer follows a fair procedure, acts reasonably and has a fair reason.
Human rights in the United Kingdom concern the fundamental rights in law of every person in the United Kingdom. An integral part of the UK constitution, human rights derive from common law, from statutes such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Human Rights Act 1998, from membership of the Council of Europe, and from international law.
Trade unions in the United Kingdom were first decriminalised under the recommendation of a Royal commission in 1867, which agreed that the establishment of the organisations was to the advantage of both employers and employees. Legalised in 1871, the Trade Union Movement sought to reform socio-economic conditions for working men in British industries, and the trade unions' search for this led to the creation of a Labour Representation Committee which effectively formed the basis for today's Labour Party, which still has extensive links with the Trade Union Movement in Britain. Margaret Thatcher's governments weakened the powers of the unions in the 1980s, in particular by making it more difficult to strike legally, and some within the British trades union movement criticised Tony Blair's Labour government for not reversing some of Thatcher's changes. Most British unions are members of the TUC, the Trades Union Congress, or where appropriate, the Scottish Trades Union Congress or the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which are the country's principal national trade union centres.
Sir Patrick Elias, PC, is a retired Lord Justice of Appeal.
United Kingdom employment equality law is a body of law which legislates against prejudice-based actions in the workplace. As an integral part of UK labour law it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because they have one of the "protected characteristics", which are, age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, pregnancy and maternity, and sexual orientation. The primary legislation is the Equality Act 2010, which outlaws discrimination in access to education, public services, private goods and services, transport or premises in addition to employment. This follows three major European Union Directives, and is supplement by other Acts like the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Furthermore, discrimination on the grounds of work status, as a part-time worker, fixed term employee, agency worker or union membership is banned as a result of a combination of statutory instruments and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, again following European law. Disputes are typically resolved in the workplace in consultation with an employer or trade union, or with advice from a solicitor, ACAS or the Citizens Advice Bureau a claim may be brought in an employment tribunal. The Equality Act 2006 established the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a body designed to strengthen enforcement of equality laws.
Jay Lee was a British National Party (BNP) member, who fought a legal battle after being expelled from a trade union.
Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen v United Kingdom [2007] ECHR 184 was a landmark case before the European Court of Human Rights and upheld the right of ASLEF, a British trade union, to be able to choose its members.
The Philippine Law Journal is an academic student-run law review affiliated with the UP College of Law at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Established in August 1914, the Journal marked its 100th anniversary in 2014 as the oldest law review in the Philippines and the oldest English language law journal in Asia. It is managed by the editorial board, composed of select students of the University of the Philippines College of Law. The Journal publishes four issues every year.
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom are part of UK constitutional law and have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation beginning with the Reform Act 1832. Attitudes towards suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory. It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form trade unions, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society".
Article 11 – Freedom of assembly and association
- Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
- No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces, of the police or of the administration of the State.
European labour law regulates basic transnational standards of employment and partnership at work in the European Union and countries adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights. In setting regulatory floors to competition to for job-creating investment within the Union, and in promoting a degree of employee consultation in the workplace, European labour law is viewed as a pillar of the "European social model". Despite wide variation in employment protection and related welfare provision between member states, a contrast is typically drawn with conditions in the United States.
The Employment Act 2008 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which reformed a wide range of different provisions of UK labour law. It is an amending statute, and therefore simply altered pre-existing law to remedy perceived problems in the law's operation to do with dispute resolution, strengthen enforcement of the minimum wage and employment agency standards and to conform with updated case law on trade unions, in particular, ASLEF v United Kingdom.
The Rosella or International Transport Workers Federation v Viking Line ABP (2007) C-438/05 is an EU law case, relevant to all labour law within the European Union, including UK labour law, which held that there is a positive right to strike. However, it also held that the right to strike could infringe a business's freedom of establishment under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union article 49. The decision has been criticised for the Court's inarticulate line of reasoning, and its disregard of fundamental human rights.
Demir and Baykara v Turkey [2008] ECHR 1345 is a landmark European Court of Human Rights case concerning Article 11 ECHR and the right to engage in collective bargaining. It affirmed the fundamental right of workers to engage in collective bargaining and take collective action to achieve that end.
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs v Stringer and Schultz-Hoff v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund [2009] UKHL 31 is a European labour law and UK labour law case concerning the Working Time Directive, which is relevant for the Working Time Regulations 1998.
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.
Collective action in the United Kingdom in UK labour law is the main support for collective bargaining. Although the right to strike has attained the status, since 1906, of a fundamental human right, protected in domestic case law, statute, the European Convention on Human Rights and international law, the rules primarily codified in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 have generated significant litigation. In order for a group of workers to take strike action, they must,
References
- ↑ "Commissioners of Inland Revenue v Ainsworth" . Retrieved 2008-05-12.
- ↑ "ASLEF v UK (ECHR)" . Retrieved 2008-05-12.