UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Paolo Palmigiano, Rachael Roberts, Helen Farr, Debbie Heywood and Louise Popple, Taylor Wessing LLP
(as amended). Key aspects of these regulations include the following. • Maximum weekly working time: Workers are protected by a 48-hour maximum working week, calculated over a reference period, typically 17 weeks. Some sectors are exempt from this, as are senior workers, who can determine their own working time. Workers can opt out of the maximum working week by signing a written statement, but they cannot be forced to do so. They may opt back into the regime at any time by giving notice to their employer. • Night work limits: For night workers, there are special limits on working hours. Typically, night work should not exceed an average of eight hours in any 24-hour period. • Rest periods and breaks – Workers have the right to rest breaks during work (a minimum of 20 minutes if the working day is longer than six hours) and daily and weekly rest periods (11 consecutive hours’ rest in any 24-hour period and an uninterrupted 24 hours without any work each week or 48 hours each fortnight). • Overtime regulation: Employers should decide whether overtime is voluntary or compulsory for a particular job and draft the employee’s employment contract accordingly. There are no statutory provisions that require an employer to pay a particular overtime wage, but average pay over the total hours they have worked must not fall below the national minimum wage. Working time may have an impact on employees’ holiday pay. Employers must also ensure that total work - ing time, including overtime, does not exceed the maximum weekly limit unless an opt-out agreement is in place. • Record keeping: Employers must keep adequate records to show compliance with
working time limits and health assessments for night workers. 4.4 Termination of Employment Contracts The following conditions apply for termination of employment. • There is no concept of “at will” employment in the UK, and employees have the right to be given notice when their employment termi - nates. • As a requirement by law, employees must give their employer at least one week’s notice that they are leaving if they have been employed for one month or more. An employ - ee who has been continuously employed for more than one month, but less than two years, is entitled to receive one week’s notice from their employer. Thereafter, they are entitled to receive an additional week’s notice for each complete year of service, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. • If an employer wants to, it can extend the notice period beyond the statutory notice period by including longer notice periods in the employment contract. • An employee can be dismissed without any notice period if they have committed a seri - ous breach of the employment contract that would justify this (for example, gross miscon - duct). • All employees with more than two years’ ser - vice may only be dismissed for one of the five legally fair reasons and be subject to a fair procedure. If the employer does not follow this procedure, the employee may have an entitlement to an unfair dismissal claim and can claim compensation as a result. • There are circumstances where employees with less than two years’ service can claim automatic unfair dismissal. These include if
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