Employment & Labor Law USA Essay Example
The United States of America is a country with many labor laws. The law protects employees from being exploited by employers through things like wage and hour regulation, safety regulations, overtime pay, or unemployment insurance. These are all important aspects for the average American who works hard to make ends meet each month.
- Essay Sample On Employment & Labor Law In The USA
- Thesis Statement – Employment & Labor Law Essay
- Introduction – Employment & Labor Law Essay
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Main Body – Employment & Labor Law Essay
- Institutions and enforcement systems for individual employment rights
- Employment Tribunals
- Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court
- Contractual Relationship between Two Companies
- ‘Contract of Service’ and ‘Contract for Service’
- Compare and Contrast the Reasons and Methods of Terminating Employment Contract
- Impact of Human Rights Provisions on Employment Contractual Relationship
- Evaluation of Application of Data Protection Principles and Right of Data-Subject in Pride & Co Company
- Conclusion
Essay Sample On Employment & Labor Law In The USA
Thesis Statement – Employment & Labor Law Essay
The U.S. employment and labor law reflects the values of the American society as well as its history, political system, and economic organization. The main goal of the essay is to give a brief overview of this topic and to discuss if it meets present-day challenges.
Introduction – Employment & Labor Law Essay
First of all, let us understand that there are four federal laws that regulate US workplaces – Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA), Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
In addition, there are public policies set by states or at local levels which can be more or less relevant depending on where you live or work in. To put it simply, these federal laws establish general minimum labor standards for all employees. The law is the basic framework that gives guidance to employers and workers on what they are allowed or not allowed to do during the employment relationship. It constitutes a set of social boundaries which are established by custom, tradition, judicial decisions, and legislative enactment.
Main Body – Employment & Labor Law Essay
Institutions and enforcement systems for individual employment rights
As per the conditions of the case, it is the legal and contractual right of the plumber to get an adequate amount of remedy or compensation for his injury.
Employment institutions where the trial can be held for the individual:
(a) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(b) Federal Labor Relations Authority
(c) Merit Systems Protection Board
(d) US Department of Labor/ Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In this case, the plumber’s injury was wrongly denied by his employer which made him get assistance from a legal consultant who then approached the court to get compensation for the said injury. In such cases, various institutions can be instituted where complaints can be filed against any unfair practices or denial of benefits by an employer towards its employees.
Employment Tribunals
As per the employment law and its related structure prevailing in the USA, the employee can take action against the contractor in Employment tribunals. This institution is an effective avenue for the employee to register his case like this the first milestone for the hierarchy of court and legal system. All the individual employment rights-related cases are held within in employment tribunals of the country. It is an efficient place, as the employee can also appeal against the decisions made by such tribunals in Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) (Turner, 2013).
Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court
The United States court system comprises of a Court of Appeal and a Supreme Court. The U.S. has 12 regions which are further divided into 94 federal circuit courts. Each state is assigned to one particular circuit, while appeals beyond the 9th Circuit go directly to the Supreme Court.
The ninth circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington states together with Guam and Mariana Islands (Ninth Circuit).
The Federal District Courts are presided over by one judge who can hear cases alone or in conjunction with juries. Appeals from the District Courts go to the regional appellate courts that comprise 11 circuits each covering several states or parts thereof i.e., One circuit can cover the entire country.
The Supreme Court of the United States is absolutely different from other courts in that it has the exclusive right to hear disputes involving constitutionality, federal laws, and treaties. It can also supervise elections for all legal offices except, judges are elected by popular vote in their own states. The Justices are appointed by the President of the United States with approval by Congress and serve for life unless they resign or retire early due to health reasons or if impeached and removed from office based on allegations of misconduct.
Contractual Relationship between Two Companies
Employment is an agreement between an employer and an employee which bonds them in an employment contractual relationship. In a contractual relationship, there are considered several processes and practices. For employees, it is the duty of an employer for having contractual relationships to provide the appropriate and required training. In the contractual relationship, the employer holds certain obligations under the Employment Relations Act that the employer has to meet. For instance, in the first case, John was provided proper training by the A/C company to help him accomplish his duties, while in the other case, BBM company does not meet the obligations defined under the employment contract.
The Employment Relations Act in this relations governs that the first company named A/C has not met the contractual relationship in a good manner with John, while BBM company does not following the guidelines of this act and hence violating it and not securing its employment relationship in legal premise (Constantinos Parissis, 2000). The contractual relationship of both the companies is different in nature as one is fully abide by the legal for maintaining the contractual relationship, while the other company does not abide with them and hence maintains no contractual relationship with employees.
‘Contract of Service’ and ‘Contract for Service’
Two forms of employment relationships are the employee and the contractor
- Contract for services: A service contract is a statement where a person is involved as an independent contractor such as a freelancer that is carrying out a project or a self-employed person. Other than this, a contract of service is a statement where a person accepts to employ another person as an employee for minimum wages.
- Contract of services: Contract of service has a scope when a person serves as an employee to another person or the employer. The employer can control the work and direct the employee. When a person is hired as an employee he enters into a contract of service. The contract of service has a scope when a person is self-employed. Here the person is free to choose the means of performing the contract. Both of these contracts are a part of the employment contract. An employment contract is an agreement between employer and employee and is the basis of the employment relationship.
Compare and Contrast the Reasons and Methods of Terminating Employment Contract
A contract between employee and employer can be terminated due to several crucial reasons. In different situations, the reasons and methods of the termination of the employment contract can differ from the other one.
Gross Misconduct Cession of work or business relocation Constantly degradation by the employer In the case of gross misconduct, the employee will be on the faulty side. In this case, if the employee is found indulged with any kind of misconduct such as theft or fraud, Sexual harassment, Violent behavior, and Criminal activity, the employer can terminate the employment contract on the spot without placing any notice. In the case of employee misconduct, the employers do not have any liability to provide any legal justification to the employee for this termination. In the case of a cession of work or business relocation, there is no fault from the side of the employee. In this case, the employer needs to give legal notice with the proper legal justification of termination. Along with this the employer also needs to provide any financial remedies and compensation for the losses borne by the employee due to the termination of the contract. In this case, the prime reason behind the termination is from the side of the employer as due to the cessation of the work or relocation of the business, it is not able to hire the employee. In the case of not providing compensation, the employee can take the assistance of employment law and go to the employment tribunals to have their right (Estreicher, 2010). In the other scenario, in which the employee is subjected to be degraded by the employer constantly and having undermining behavior with him, he or she can resign from the job without giving any prior notice to the employer. The employee can sue the employer for terminating the employment contract on the ground of discrimination acts of employment law. In this regard, the prime reason behind the termination of the contract is the misconduct or misbehaves of the employer, which can be dealt with by the court under the employment act. In this case, the court provides judgment in the favor of the employee (Hor and Keats, 2009). Impact of Human Rights Provisions on Employment Contractual Relationship
The human rights provisions have a direct impact on the employment contractual relationship. There has been developed a single commission for equality as well as human rights. The Human Rights Act 1998 about contractual relationships states that to relinquish the trade union rights of employees the European Court of Human Rights offers a financial inducement to employees for securing their contractual relationship with the employees. The employees have the right to take part in the activities of the trade union when the employer recognizes the trade union (Kibling and Lewis, 2000). Based on their membership and non-membership, the employees can have protection from dismissal and action short of dismissal.
The Human Rights Act also secures the privacy rights of the employees and secures their membership in the trade union. This discussion reflects that human rights provision that is defined under the Human Rights Act have a good impact on the employment contractual relationship and the same practices are evident in the real world organizations of the present date where the employers are abiding with this act while making a contractual relationship with the employees. This law is equally applied to all USA-based organizations.
Evaluation of Application of Data Protection Principles and Right of Data-Subject in Pride & Co Company
About Pride & Company’s case related to disclosure of personal information of an employee David to other parties, the data protection principles and their application specify that employers have to keep abidance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and thus need to have compliance with the certain principles to process the personal data of employees (Kibling and Lewis, 2000). With the application of this law, the employer has a prohibition to disclose the personal information of any employee without taking his consent. This is a legal obligation under the contract of employment that was violated by Pride & Co Company that was a kind of legal issue in the eye of the USA employment law.
The principles of Data Protection require that an employer must ensure that personal data hold by the company should be accurate, secured, and processed for certain specific purposes. In context to right of the data subject, there are three conditions only in that the employer has right to disclose the information to other parties including the employer or the person who is involved within the conduct, the legal adviser of the individual for taking legal advice on an issue and the listed public bodies in the Order 1999 of the Public Interest Disclosure and same is applied in the case of Pride & Co company, but there was not of the person from this category to whom the data of David was disclosed.
Conclusion
Based on the above facts and findings and case analysis done about the employment relationships, it has been evaluated the employment relationship legislation of the USA provides a strong base for dealing with the case issues related to employment law. The report has provided a clear rationale for different case issues related to employment relationships and contractual agreements.
This has been evident based on the case evaluations and conceptual aspects that in the USA, the law deals with the cases of employment law with the implication of health and safety-related regulations and discrimination and equality matters. The USA employment law also provides a clear description of the sources of employment relationships and provisions for employee termination. In this way, the employment law provides a good understanding of the employment relationship and its related cases.