Employment law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Employment law - Essay Example The emphasis is on the common law tests used to determine employee status. This is a particularly contentious area in the modern labour markets where the lines between the employed and self-employed are increasingly â€Å"blurred†.3 This paper demonstrates that the common law tests developed to determine the employee status is unsatisfactory and why. I. Significance of Determining Employee Status Initially, the courts treated the employee status as one defined around the concept of master and servant. As a result, during the 19th century, the employment relationship was primarily regarded as one of service in which the emphasis was on the servant’s (employee’s) duty to remain loyal and subservient rather than the master’s (employer’s) duty to â€Å"provide continuing employment.†4 In more recent times the word â€Å"worker† continues to gain currency in legislation and regulations suggesting the modernisation of employee status.5 For i nstance, Section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that: In this Act ‘worker’ (except in the phrases ‘shop worker’ and ‘betting worker’) means an individual who has entered into or works (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under) – (a) A contract of employment, or (b) Any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that or a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual.6 In other words, the term worker is used interchangeably with the word employee, reflecting the varying forms of employment that can take place in modern times. For instance the individual who works from home may not be under the kind of control that the workplace employee is, but should not be denied employee status.7 The use of the word worker immediately draws attention to the changing nature of the employee status and carries with it the identification of the significance of the employee in today’s labour market. The employee is no longer a servant, but a source of human capital. In this regard, the common law tests for determining the master servant relationship which necessarily flow from the older notion of master and servant, is no longer compatible with modern notions of the employee/employer relationship. There are essentially four primary reasons justifying a more robust test for determining employee status in more recent times. To begin with, the predominance of the contract of employment as a basis for identifying the employee’s status does not take into account the relative inequality of bargaining power between the employee (the weaker party) and the employer.8 These inequities compromise the extent to which the employee may bargain for and ob tain specific benefits under the contract of employment. The fact is, a self-employed worker will obviously be responsible for its own salary and health and safety at work.9 Secondly, the

Read the attached article and answer the questions Essay

Read the attached article and answer the questions - Essay Example It can be seen that the Gini coefficient of some countries is close to 0.0 while others are more than 0.5. This is because of differences in the income inequality. Countries like South Africa have a high rate of inequality which brings the Gini coefficient to 0.6 while Scandinavian countries like Sweden maintains the Gini coefficient for disposable income at 0.25. Beddoes goes further to show that the economic differences of the countries around the globe are increasing; for example in America, Gini for disposable income has shot up by 30 percent as from 1980. In China, the Gini coefficient it has gone up to 0.42, which shows an increase of nearly 50 percent. Sweden is no exception, since the Gini coefficient for disposable income increased to 0.24. Because of the differences of the economies of the countries, others being poor and others rich, the economic inequality has risen as from the 19th century to the 20th century. The first cause of income inequality is because the countries which were rich economically started intensifying as from the 19th to the 20th century than the poor nations (Beddoes 4). This can be supported further by the sprout of the industries which brought in rural to urban migration. Another cause is the treatment of people in the middle and bottom of the income distribution as compared to those one at the top. The ones at the top were bailed out when they fail to pay their debt while those in the middle and bottom would lose their assets. Furthermore, the tax levied on people of different level causes big inequalities; it is evident that the rich and the poor are taxed at the same rates. In European countries, the income inequality rose because of the industrial revolution, which can be explained by the fact that mill workers’ incomes were high as compared to rural workers (Beddoes 9). On comparing this to America, it is seen that the income difference widened mainly because of education that caused the higher income class to rise higher than the lower income classes. The education factor also has a racial factor, where minorities received lower education levels than majority racial identities. The same education factor is also seen in many other countries like Asian countries. Other factors in the American system include taxes that favored higher income individuals over low income individuals. According to the Beddoes (23), there are three main strategies that would be used to reduce inequality in both developed and developing economies. One of the first reforms needed is to curb cryonism and enhance competition in emerging markets. This can be done by reducing the powers that monopolies have and spreading competition among all markets. Having a freer economy, which can be achieved by freeing monopolistic markets, would go a long way in reducing inequality. This can also be done in advanced countries by removing subsidies from big corporations, which would serve to balance up the economy. The second strateg y proposed by the (Beddoes 23) is to have targeted and progressive social spending, especially in countries with emerging economies. Beddoes suggests that a shift in social spending factors in all economies would reduce inequality. For example, one of the best models is the Latin American one, where countries are encouraged to spend more in education and investment opportunities in talented individuals. The last