United Kingdom employment law has been drawn up for the protection of the legal rights of workers, protecting them from exploitation. Labour law is one of the oldest laws which protect workers. Modern labour law, quite developed by the nineteenth century, is based on facilitating contractual freedom of workers. Labour law can be seen either as an “individual” or a “collective” law. Individual law includes the basic rights of the people. The basic framework of employment law remained steady for about thirty years and provided only limited scope over trade union activities. Under the national minimum wage act of 1998, every worker in UK has the right to a minimum wage.

All these acts primarily have their origins in the Employment Rights Act, 1996. One of the main rights given to employees under this act is the right to fair dismissal- Employees cannot be unfairly dismissed. This is a very important right. The employee has the right to raise complaints to an employment tribunal. The employee should given reasonable notice before the termination of their employment contract. At present the employee should be intimated by a notice at least one week before dismissal.

A written contract is made a must since this act has been passed. This insists that the vital part of the contract must be written and must be given to the employee eight weeks before the start of work. This is called the ‘written statement of particulars’. This statement is a guide to the employee about his rights and he must be made fully aware of the terms and conditions. Time off rights must be given to the employee. This includes maternity leave and parental leave. The employee has the right to ask for flexible working. The right to redundancy payments must be given to the employee. The employment rights act ensures lost earnings compensation. Some other rights include paid off time for public duties, and dismissal from work due to health problems, disease or due to request of flexible working is considered to be unfair.