Many of your rights at work will depend on what it says in your contract of employment: these are your contractual rights. You'll find information in this section to help you understand the key terms of your employment contract.
The rights and duties of both employers and employees are to be found in the contract of employment. They are called terms of the contract.
Some of these terms are express terms: that is they are expressly stated – either orally (say at the initial interview) or in writing.
The law states that certain express terms must be put in writing and handed to the employee in the form of a written statement of particulars – this must occur within two months of the individual starting work.
Express terms include:
There are other contractual terms called implied terms. These are not expressly stated because, in the main, they are fairly obvious to both parties to the contract of employment.
Occasionally the courts will imply a term in a contract of employment where an important term has been left out.
Implied terms include statutory rights, such as the right to equal pay, and duties, such as a duty of care.
An important element of the contract of employment is the concept of mutual trust and confidence. This is also an implied term of the contract of employment.
The law recognizes that the employer has a duty to trust the employee and treat him or her with respect and fairly.
If the employer fundamentally breaches that trust and confidence, an employee may be justified in treating his or her contract as having been unlawfully breached, and therefore (if there is no alternative) promptly resigning in response to the breach and claiming constructive unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal.
Some terms may be implied through custom and practice in a particular trade or with a particular employer. For example, it may become customary (over a period of time) to leave early on a Friday, or to add an extra day to a Bank Holiday. In order for an entitlement to become established by custom and practice, it must usually be long-standing, uninterrupted, automatically received, expected and well-known.
Also, sometimes custom and practice is used to interpret an express term, for example, what a reference to "reasonable overtime" in a written contract means.
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