Talk:British labour law

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Contents

[edit] (From anonymous 195.93.21.102)

I'm new to wikipedia - and I think it's great! I will look into getting an account so I can participate properly.

[edit] Re.'Employment Law' article

My edits. They were not meant to be wide of the mark (they were over the status of EAT decisions - apologies!) but I did feel the article was very brief at that stage, so added what I considered to be accurate and relevant. I can see that the section on unfair dismissal is improving steadily but in the process it is beginning to take over and becoming an article in itself.

What has not been included: Alternatives to compensation awards (re-engagement, reinstatement, orders made, additional awards made in lieu if employer disregards - which they can, enforcement not being the same thing as judgment, difficulties getting compensation paid etc etc). Even though 'uncommon' these possible outcomes ought to be mentioned for completeness somewhere, I feel.

What about the extending the current references to the 'main Acts', should this not also include Equal Pay, Sex Discrimination - indeed a 'list of tribunal juridictions' as all fall under 'Employment Law' [UK] and are concerned with much more wide ranging issues affecting the development of law are they not?

There are no references (eg to the legislation itself): One could start with a new article here ('Employment Rights Act 1996'?) describing what's in it and link from the current article to there. Other Acts could be described in this way. Alternatively, maybe the DTi.gov site could be used to provide links to the legislation instead, and a 'Wiki' (entitled 'Employment Legislation [UK]'?)could simply 'summarise' what the DTi says about these Acts and link to individual DTi pages in each 'section' concerned with a given Act. In this way the range of Employment laws could be presented quite concisely without the reader having to leave the article, unnecessarily

(On how to produce precise effects on pages: I appreciate that one way to see how this is done is to click on 'edit' and study the raw text (without changing anything!) of random or 'interesting' looking pages)

Thank you for your edifications..

Regards. Paul White

[edit] 'References' added

As you can see I've now got an account. I've added what I think are two helpful links to one of the DTi's comprehensive online guides covering the 'two stage' description of UD in the preceding section. I didn't know if referencing from the body like this is allowed, but it looks the right thing to do to me!

Regards. Paul White

[edit] Maximum Compensatory award

I have edited the maximum compensatory award to reflect the figure applying from 1/2/05 £56,800 Source: http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/pay/limits-pl827b.htm#5

Regards Amica

[edit] Concerning the latest chanages to the UK employment law bit:

I think that the description of the 'process' at tribunal now has got a bit long and over descriptive. And the phrasing is a bit odd. We are now referring to a 'claimant' bringing a case and later an 'employee' being judged in relation to the case.

eg "Except where no qualifying time limit applies (as in the case of 'statutory rights') an employee needs to have worked for their employer for a least a year in order to make a complaint of unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal. In addition, a claimant may raise a complaint of discrimination without claiming dismissal or whilst also claiming dismissal but without one year of service."

Some references like: "after the ET3 response form has gone in" and "after the EDT and before the tribunal hearing." would seem to need some attention.

[What's an 'EDT' for instance?]

Also, where is now says

"Most tribunal offices however write to the claimant upon receipt of their claim form telling them that they have 14 days to show why their claim should be heard, otherwise the chairman will strike out the claim."

This sort of remark begs the question "Do they?". If you look at what this is saying it could be interpreted as meaning that tribunals write to people "most of the time, but not always" in such circumstances as a "service" rather than a requirement. Since everything a tribunal does is "judicable" they don't just write to anyone on a whim. There must be a reason in every case. This statement may be generally accurate but needs qualifying as it stands.

As I say it is now a bit 'wordy' and could do with some fileting. But I'm not going to fiddle with. I'll leave that the source or to others

Bye, bye! [Paul]

[edit] More Edits and change of title suggestion

Two minor edits: I have mentioned the statutory dispute resolution procedure and that the statutory cap does not apply to discrimination claims. Although the entry is looking very good, I think there is more work to be done. As the entry grows, it may be better to increase the breadth of the entry rather than its depth: for example Tribunal procedure and unfair dismissal might occupy their own pages in time.

The main body of the entry is about a specific aspect of Employment law: i.e. the issues arising out of the termination of employment. For my money an entry entitled 'British Labour Law' would benefit by dealing with the history of its development, its sources, the areas it covers, the institutions that affect it (eg trade unions, the EU, ILO etc.) and its future.

I recommend that the parts of this entry dealing with termination of employment should be sub-catorgorised as 'termination of employment' or something similar under the main banner of British Labour Law.

ravells

I notice that there has been a change in title to "British Labour Law". Almost no-one in England and Wales (and I doubt anyone anywhere else in the UK), uses "Labour Law" in this way. "Employment Law" is almost universal now. Why the change? Why not change to the more normal term? Francis Davey 23:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
The two leading texts are titled Labour law, so this simply isn't true. People who insist on calling it "employment" law usually have some fickle political objection. Wikidea 10:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

Please discuss the potential merger on the talk page of labour law. Thanks - Breadandroses 21:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


some basic information seems to be missing. Who are the judges or jury on an industrial tribunal, and how are they chosen ?

( In France they are elected by workers and by bosses) JM

[edit] Under-payment of wages & the law

If an employer intentionally consistently under-pays its workers, presenting the amount of wages paid as the correct amount (e.g. by reducing hours on wage slip or miscalculating) when the correct wages would be higher, is that a crime? I assume it is a crime- but what crime would it be? And who deals with that: OFT? Revenue? N-edits 16:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] British labour law and application in football/soccer

As you can see, there are cases where football clubs apply for work permit for some of its non-EU players. I heard somewhere about having played 70% of international games and the national team being on the top 70 of the FIFA rankings. Is there an article on this, or has it been added and deleted?

219.74.58.195 18:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Procedural emphasis

This page is really very detailed on the procedural path to a legal claim in a tribunal, and has almost nothing on substantive law. What does anyone think about putting the procedure into a separate page, and summarising it into a subsection here? Wikidea 23:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Under construction

As one can see, I'm putting in lots of provisions, as markers which I'll get round to joining into sentences properly. I hope it's not unsightly, and I think at any rate, it's better than having nothing at all. Please help out if you've the time.Wikidea 13:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rename?

Now lots of work is being done on this page, can it be renamed to refer to "Employment" rather than "labour" law? No-one in the field (and I am an employment barrister of some standing) calls it "labour law", unless they mean "collective employment law" and that is now a rarity. The present title is (I think) a hold-over from some USian terminology. Francis Davey (talk) 17:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You've mooted this issue before, and I think the same answer is appropriate. The two leading textbooks are called Labour law and the title is well understood as it is. It may well be that at your particular chambers everyone calls it employment law, but I think if you stroll around, say, King's Bench Walk a bit you'd find some different views. It's simply untrue that no one in the field calls it labour law. I do. Wikidea 23:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The leading work in the field is "Harvey on Industrial Relations" (which goes neither way), there is no labour law society, there is an employment law bar association, an employment lawyers' association and the industrial law society. "Labour law" is not used (and "employment" is used) as a classification by bar mutual, chambers and partners, olpas and so on. Can you give an example of a chambers that does use "labour law" to refer to general employment law? I can't think of any, but if you have an example in mind a cite would be useful. I have practised from 5 chambers, "employment" not "labour" in all 5. Its the terminology used in ELBA and the ILS (both of which I have been a member of). When I have a moment I will chase down the textbooks mentioned in this article which I don't know. Francis Davey (talk) 16:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
That's very nice, but we already know people use both terms. You said nobody uses labour law, and that's just not true. I think that labour law is more appropriate, and better understood. The main reason, is that labour law tends to encompass more than 'employment law' does. Besides I bet I can think up as many and more examples that go in my favour, but that'd be a bit futile, wouldn't it. I think you shouldn't make the mistake of viewing usage of a term in legal practice as having a monopoly on correctness. If I were you I'd really be more worried about what the page has to say about labour/employment law, rather than the title. With all your experience (apart from your narrow view of terminology) you should be able to write this stuff best! When you chase down those books, why not use them to write something? Better that than waste time arguing with me about it.
By the way, I imagine they don't call it the Labour law society, because it'd be a bit confusing with the Society of labour lawyers! Wikidea 21:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Terminology is changing. When I studied few years ago, I took a course in 'Labour Law', but the textbooks I now use for my teaching are all titled 'Employment Law' (just as 'Industrial Relations' is increasingly called 'Employment Relations'). I don't think it matters that much how the article is called in the end, as long as there are redirects, and as long as this fact (different terminology being used) is mentioned somewhere in the introdction. Niels Wergin 18:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree with the comments above with regard to the inappropriate name of this article. "British labour law" has two major defects: (1) the term "british" is a legal nonsense outside of the confines of nationality law, and (2) the term "labour law" is passé - the last Act to be passed with "labour" in its title was in 1976; it smacks of a bygone era of labour exchanges and the master/servant relationship. Leading titles such as Halsbury's and Selwyn make no reference to labour law. This article should be moved to either UK employment law or Employment law in the United Kingdom. Lamberhurst (talk) 20:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)