Rights and Obligations of Employees in Work Place (Essay Sample)

Rights and Obligation of Employees in Workplace
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Employees are entitled to various basic rights during their employment period. Employers must therefore ensure that employees receive all their basic rights. Employee’s rights and obligation are governed and detailed by the employment legislation. In regard to this, all employers must ensure that they are familiar and vividly understand the employee’s responsibilities and rights as enlisted to the employment legislation. All employers have all the legal responsibilities to ensure that their workplace is healthy and safe for the employees. However, employees also have responsibility to ensure that their rights and well-being is protected within their workplace. In addition, employees have rights to question their boss over anything they feel it will affect their rights and wellbeing within the company. Parallel to this, employee can also file a petition in a court of law when they feel that their rights are not obeyed within their working place (Wolkinson, 2008).
Employees and employers have several obligation and rights in the workplace. Employee’s rights within workplace protect them from any potential unsafe and harmful working condition or any form of discrimination within their working place. Workplace obligation on the other hand holds employees accountable and responsible for their action and ensures that employees behave responsibly and ethically. Employee’s rights and obligations protection in a workplace is an integrated activity which incorporates all stakeholders. Employment stakeholders include employees, employers, government through the court of law, and other relevant institutions and NGOs which works towards protecting employee’s rights within their workplace. Employees need to know their rights and obligation in workplace (Wolkinson, 2008). This paper will define and discuss employee’s rights and obligations within workplace, how employees can ensure that their rights are protected within work place and how employees can do with an aim of claiming their rights. These are the key things an employee should understand for him or her to be able to protect and fight for his or her right.
Who is an employee?
An employee is any person engaged by an employer on contracts of services. An employee is fully protected by the employment legislation. Self-employed and independent contractors who are mostly offered contracts for services are not protected by the employment legislation. However, the difference between the contract for service and contract of service sometimes become difficult to understand and has created problems between contractors and employers in matters of social welfare, taxation, and employment protection legislation (Wolkinson, 2008).
Terms of employment and contract definition
Employees need to understand their workplace practice and custom in issues related to contract writing. Even though some employers do not provide contract writing during the beginning of the contract, contract writings must be provided and agreed on by contractor and employer before the first two months of the employment. The contract writing include the names of employee, full names of employer, detailed job title, notice requirements, hours of work, and the job pay. Terms and conditions of employment are provided in the company handbook or the contract writing. However, employee and employer need to agree on whether to change the terms and conditions during the signing of contract paper (Wolkinson, 2008).
Rates of pay
Different countries and companies have different minimum wages for their employees. The wages vary due to various factors which include employee experience, relationship between the employer and employee, age of the employee, and the government employment legislation. However, the employment wage varies most according to the agreement made by the employer and employee on the contract writing. In regard to this, employees need to understand all the relevant information regarding their employment payment in terms of the amount and mode of payment. In addition, before signing contract employees should do a research on the amount received by other employees in the same post and company. Employees should also ensure that their contract offers enough time to rest. In regard to this, employees should ensure that their contract writing are clear on the number of working hours per day, rest periods, and breaks in between working period (Wolkinson, 2008).
Leave
All employees including part-time, full-time, casual, and temporary employees have public holiday entitlement and annual leave from the starting of their contract. According to Wolkinson (2008), most employees in the developed countries are entitled to a four weeks leave per year which is fully paid. It is all about the role of the employer to determine the timing of employees annual leave time. However, employers should also consult the employee union and employees in advance to ensure that they come into agreement on the employee best leave time. Employees can also ask for their annual leave before their employer’s set time as a result of their personal interest but this issue must be discussed by the employer and employee. Employees also need to understand that they have right to request for maternity leave, adoptive leave, parental leave, safety and health leave. However, employees need to understand the different legislations which govern each entitlement (Wolkinson, 2008).
After understanding these employment related terms, it is very easy for the employees and employers to understand the rights and obligation of each other. Some of the employers and employee’s rights and obligations include;
Safety and health in a workplace
All employees are entitled to rights of working in a healthy and safe environment. These rights cannot be removed or changed by their employers. In regard to this, employees also have a key role to play to protect their rights. Some of the major rights include; to have their health risk controlled properly, to be provided with protective safety gadget for free, in case of any safety concern the employee have the right to leave the work place without being disciplined or fined, to keep employer updated about his or her safety concerns, employee also has the right to contact any other health and safety body if the employer does not want to listen to his or her safety and health concerns, employees have rights to have resting breaks during the day, and to have annual paid leave which is not less than three weeks (Jasper, 2003).
In regard to these health and safety rights, the employees also have several responsibilities to ensure that they protect their rights and their safety in work place. Some of these responsibilities include: employee should take great care of their own safety and health, avoid wearing loose clothes or jewelry when operating machinery, take care of the headscarf or long hair by making sure it is tucked out well when operating machinery, employee should also ensure that their activities in their workplace does not put other employees at risk by being responsible enough with their actions, employee should also understand the working place safety measures and also be ready to cooperate with his or her employer to improve employee health standards, employee should take care of safety equipment provide by the company, and employee should also report any form of illness or injuries suffered during working hours.
On the other hand, employers also have responsibilities to ensure their safety and that of employees is protected in their workplace. Some of these responsibilities include: employers should ensure that the workplace and equipment are safe for use by maintaining them well, employers should also prevent any form of improper behaviors or conducts in workplace that can put other employee at risk, employers should also provide health and safety training and instructions to employees, employers should also ensure that they provide protective equipment and clothing to employees at zero cost, and employer should also appoint a Safety Officer who is competent (Jasper, 2003). In addition, employers should also carry a regular risk assessment in their work place which should be aimed at identifying any potential risks or hazards in the workplace. Employers should also prepare a workplace safety statement that is based on the risk assessment. Employers are also obliged to make a report of any accident.
Dismissal and disciplinary procedure
Employees should have a disciplinary procedure and written grievances for dismissal and disciplinary. The disciplinary procedures are stages set out that stipulate the processes to follow in an alleged employee shortcoming. In addition, dismissal procedure should allow both formal and informal warnings. Employees have the right to be given a written notice of the dismissal procedure in the first four weeks after signing the contract. These procedures should be fully followed in times of dismissal. The employer should also inform the employees of their allegation before dismissing them. The employees should be given a chance to be repres