Protecting staff through legislation Essay

Understand how equal pay and minimum wage laws affect business Understand the laws against discrimination at work and during recruitment Understand employment rights of workers Understand health and safety laws A minority of small businesses will treat staff unfairly; to protect them is the legislation Act. Equal Pay Act – Created in 1970 the equal pay act means a person of a different sex cannot be paid less simply because they are a girl/boy. An example of this is football; premiership football players get paid well over à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½500,000 yet the players on the girl’s team only get paid a fraction of it. If the owner of a company is doing this he/she would be breaking the laws. Minimum Wage Act – Only enforced 11 years ago, the minimum wage act was made as many companies were taking advantage of people needing jobs and paying them a tiny amount of money. Discrimination Legislation – First introduced in 1976 and then again in 1996 the discrimination act prevents candidates skin colours, backgrounds, religions or even disabilities to be a factor in the owner deciding weather he/she gets the job. Employment Rights – To give employees the right to take sick pay, maternity/paternity leave and holidays. Health And Safety Acts – The right to be safe in the working environment. If this was not a law then if someone is injured for example because someone forgot to wipe water off a keyboard after spilling water onto it and it giving the employee an electric shock then the company could get away with it and blame the employee. Legislation acts are laws enforced by the government. Without them there would be complete kayos. Companies would immediately cut costs and thousands of people would suffer. For example if a company could get a hold of a person to do something for à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½1 an hour when they are currently paying à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6 an hour they would happily take the other person onboard.