As an employee, there are certain rights that you are entitled to that you might feel are being ignored. It is important that you know what these are so that if they are being breached, you can do something about it. If you don’t currently know what these are, then you need to continue reading this article so that you will know for the future. Let’s take a look at some of the employee rights that you need to know about.
Overtime Without Pay
You never have to accept overtime without pay. Some companies will make you feel guilty if you say no to this, but you are under no legal obligation to take this offer. If you are offered this, and you decline, there is not allowed to be any repercussions against you based on this. If there are, you need to take action as this is a violation of your rights. You might remember a short while ago, Rockstar games was heavily criticized for allegedly having their employees working 100 hour weeks with no overtime pay. The staff here said that they had to do this, and that is why they agreed to the shifts. But it is your right to refuse, and if there is any backlash for you, then you should take this to a superior member of the business.
The Right To Feel Safe
You have the right to feel safe in your place of work. If for any reason you do not, you should be taking this up with someone who is further up the ranks than you. If they do not act on this, then you should take this higher and higher until someone does something about this. Any form of abuse, harassment, or anything along these lines should be reported. Anything that makes you feel as though you are not safe should not be tolerated in the workplace, and your boss should be dealing with it. If nobody is listening to you, and you feel as though it is not safe to go into work, you should think about contacting someone to help you take action against the company.
On the flip side of this, if you are an employer, you need to be speaking with an employment lawyer to make sure that you are up to date on all the rules and regulations regarding your employees. If one of your team members doesn’t feel safe, it is your job to do something about this.
No DiscriminationS
Finally, and this comes under feeling safe in the workplace, but it is so important, so we gave it its own section. You have the right to not be discriminated against in your workplace by anyone. It doesn’t matter whether this is your race, gender, ethnicity, or whatever, you should not have to deal with this when you are at work. It is your employer’s job to ensure that you are being treated fairly by all in the company, so if you are having issues with this, you need to be taking this to them.
We hope that you now know some of the employee rights that you definitely need to know about.
