Employees, Know Your Rights!

Employees have a specific set of laws that govern their rights in the workplace. This is to ensure fairness and protection. It is important to understand the rights an employee has if you are working as an employee. Laws protect you as an employee from discrimination, bullying, harassment, and more. You will not know when someone is breaching a law if you don’t know the laws of the workplace. Ensure you get fair treatment, by knowing these basic employee rights.

You Have a Right To Complain

As an employee, you have a right to complain about the working conditions and employment, without facing any repercussions. The complaint may be informal or formal as desired. It may be verbal or written. Employees may also complain in confidence and are legally protected from termination of employment or reprisals as a result of that complaint. If there is something wrong with the supervision of teams and members at your workplace, you can report about it too. Typically, an informal verbal complaint is made first. However, if that does not translate into action, you can take action according to the official grievance policy.

You Have a Right to Correct Compensation

The law reads that the compensation of the employees include everything that the employer owes them. If you are underpaid, your employer faces the risk of a huge fine. However, it isn’t a good idea to impose fines on your employer as mistakes do sometimes happen. If you pick up on mistakes in your paycheck, resolve it with the finance and human resources department. If it is not a mistake and your compensation is genuinely low, consider a formal demand for compensation revision. Should they ignore this, you can take them to court for a formal trial.

You Are Protected From Discrimination

Discrimination comes in many forms. It can be in the form of denial of employment based on your race or ethnicity. To something like rejecting a promotion owing to your pregnancy.

Understanding what discrimination actually is is a very important step to understanding your employee rights. General workplace law states that the management cannot deny advancements, employment, or terminate you without a valid reason. If the reason is discriminatory, you can take legal action. This reason can be your marital status, your age or gender identity, your nationality or ethnicity, your physical health or disabilities, religion, political views or social status, or your parental responsibilities.

You Are Protected From Bullying

While there are protective measures in place to protect employees from bullies in the workplace, the unfortunate part is that bullying is often difficult to define. This is because some workplace actions are reasonable even if you do not feel that they are. For instance, the time when they put you on a fair performance management plan.

Bullying is when there’s an unfair treatment that can negatively impact your physical and mental well-being. It counts as bullying even if it can potentially have a negative effect on you. If there is an instance of bullying you can file a formal complaint and see if that changes things. If they ignore the complaint, you can contact the commission for workplace fairness and fill in a formal application.

You Have a Right to Request Employment Records

All businesses must, by law, keep their employees’ records for a minimum of seven years. It is your right as an employee to request copies of these records during this period of time. Should the company you work for fail to comply with this request, the company may be penalized. The employer has a legal obligation to retain all records on file for these seven years and produce copies as requested by you.

There are still more employment rights that you need to be aware of. One of your rights is also the right to know your rights, as confusing it may sound! Your employer should provide every employee with information regarding workplace and employee rights. You should get this either before you start work or at the first available opportunity. Should you believe that an event or incident that infringes your rights as an employee, you should contact a legal representative for professional guidance. Knowing what your rights are, is the first step to avoid discrimination and unfavorable practices.