Text 5 Employees` Rights

Employers cannot treat their employees in any way they like. There are dozens of laws protecting employees` rights. If employers break these laws they can be taken before an industrial tribunal, which can award the employee thousands of pounds' compensation.

Some of the things an employer must do are:

• Provide employees with a written statement of employment within two months of starting work, unless they will be employed for less than a month. The statement should include:

• the employer's name

• the employee's name

• the date employment began

- the amount of pay and the intervals between payments

• hours of work

• holiday entitlement

• sick-leave arrangements

• pension arrangements

• length of notice for ending employment

• job title or brief description

• if not a permanent job, the period for which employment expected to last

• the place of work

• details of disciplinary and grievance procedures

Provide an itemized pay statement showing gross and net pay, statuto­ry deductions for income tax and national insurance, and any pension contributions and voluntary deductions.

Give men and women equal pay if they are doing the same work or work of equal value. Give Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to an employee who has been off sick for four or more days in a row for up to 28 weeks.

Give guarantee payments of up to £14.10 a day to employees who are laid off through shortage of work, for up to five days in a three-month period.

Give women 14 weeks' unpaid maternity leave regardless of length of employment or hours of work. Give women who have worked for the business for two years Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) of 90 per cent of their weekly earnings for the first six weeks and, at the time of writ­ing, £52.50 a week for the remaining 12 weeks. These payments must be made even if the woman is not returning to her job. Provide a written statement of rea­sons for dismissal. Employees are entitled to receive at least one week's notice (or pay instead) after one month's employment and a maximum of 12 weeks' pay for 12 years of employment or more. Give redundancy pay to employees with at least two years' service. This ranges, according to age, from half a week's to one and a half weeks' pay for each year of employment, up to a maximum of 20 years. Observe the Health and Safety Regulations of 1993, based on a European Union (EU) law, which makes it compulsory for employers to treat health and safety as seriously as any other aspect of their business by assessing risk and tak­ing suitable action. The regulations include most of the provisions of the Health and Safety Act of 1974.

• Give part-time workers the same employment rights as full-time workers.

• Treat disabled workers no less favourably than other workers under the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. This applies only to businesses employing 20 people or more.

An employer must not:

• Discriminate against employees because of their race (see Unit 74).

• Make deductions from pay, except in a few cases allowed by law or by a contract of employment or when an employee has given written con­ sent, e.g. for trade union subscrip­tions or National Savings.

• Stop an employee from joining a trade union or dismiss an employee for belonging to a union.

• Stop an employee taking time off for public duties, e.g. as a magistrate or as a member of a local council.

• Employ children under 13 years of age, except in some family businesses.

• Dismiss a woman because she is pregnant.

• Dismiss an employee for refusing to work on Sundays.

• Dismiss an employee unfairly.

The main reasons for which an employer can dismiss an employee are:

• misconduct

• inability to do the job

• redundancy, if the employee's labour is no longer needed.

If the dismissal was for misconduct, the employee must know that he or she was committing an offence, and a warning has to be given so that the employee has a chance to put a case, or to put right his or her behaviour. If it was for inability to do the job, it must be shown that adequate training and supervision were provided and that a more suitable job was offered instead. If it was for redundancy, the employer needs to show that he or she gave as much notice as possible and that the method of selection was fair.

Unit 7. Trade

Text 1

Foreign Trade

Most international trade consists of the purchase and sale of industrial equipment, consumer, goods, oil and agricultural products. In addition, services such as banking, insurance, transportation, telecommunications, engineering and tourism account for about one-fifth of all world exports.

Trade has long been considered a primary instrument for development. It also has a social impact by bringing isolated cultures into contact with new ideas, technologies and goods. In 1964, when the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) met in Geneva, trade was still recognized as a primary vehicle for development. The conference concluded that the effective development assistance was extremely limited in its power to bring social change compared to trade, which could generate employment and accelerate economic growth.

In the course of historical development, one can observe recurrent swings in commercial policy of different countries: from protection toward free trade, and back toward protection. During the mercantilism the national policies were to export much, import little. Countries often pursued highly restrictive policies, imposing tariffs, quotas, embargoes, state monopolies, and a variety of other measures to regulate their foreign trade. The middle of the nineteenth century witnessed a definite shift in the direction of free trade. Great Britain was the leader in this movement. Some countries followed the British example. Many countries concluded commercial treaties stipulating tariff reductions and other measures to liberalize trade. Most of these treaties included a most- favoured -nation clause providing the lowest tariff rates.

One of the most significant trends in the world economy since the end of World War II has been a rapid increase in international trade. In 1950, total world merchandise exports amounted to $58 billion. In 1990, exports were $3.5 trillion, over 60 times as much. This rate of increase was roughly three times fast as overall world economic growth. As its volume has increased, trade has become ore important to the economic well-being of many countries.

All governments regulate foreign trade and practise protectionism to some extent. The debate is over how much or how little protectionism to use to reach a country's economic goals. Those ;who favour free trade think that an open trading system with few imitations and little government involvement is best. Advocates of protectionism believe that governments must take actions to regulate trade and subsidize industries to protect the domestic economy.

In order to examine a country's position in international trade is useful to consult two of the most frequently used statistics, the balance of trade and the balance of payments. When you hear on the news about "trade balance", what you are usually hearing about is the merchandise trade balance, which is the difference between a nation's exports and imports of merchandise. A "favourable" merchandise balance of trade, or trade surplus, occurs when a country's exports exceed its imports. A 'negative' balance, or trade deficit, occurs when a country's imports exceed its exports. The balance of trade, however, is not the whole picture; it includes only purchases and sales of merchandise.

The- complete summary of all economic transactions between a country and the rest of the world - involving transfers of merchandise, services, financial assets and tourism - is called the balance of payments. The balance of payments for the country is separated into two main accounts: the current account and the capital account. The current account records sales and purchases of goods, services and interest payments. The entire merchandise trade balance is contained in the current account. The capital account deals with investment items, like whole companies, stocks, bonds, bank accounts, real estate and factories.

Recent decades have seen important shifts in the composition and directions of world trade. The manufactured goods of the developed countries have accounted for the main growth of trade, surpassing the growth rates for trade in agricultural raw materials, ores and metals. In many countries one of the driving forces behind the increase in export was the success of companies in selling "knowledge-intensive" manufactured goods to other countries. The production of these goods relies more on a skilled, well educated workforce than on natural resources. These knowledge-intensive products are becoming a major force in international trade and a source of much wealth to countries whose economies are well-positioned to compete in those markets.

The diversification of the types of goods exported has been the hallmark of world trade in the past several decades. Companies operating in home markets encounter many common problems in selling their products or services - minimizing costs, achieving the required quality, meeting delivery dates, collecting payment, and financing the whole operation.

When companies start to export they face similar problems, but with differences that are peculiar to the task of selling abroad. The laws, languages and customs of most overseas markets are likely to be unfamiliar, as are particular commercial and technical specifications required by overseas buyers. Payments have to be made in a currency foreign either to exporters or to their buyers or both. Fluctuations in the exchange rate are an added hazard, creating uncertainty about the value exporters finally receive. In addition, overseas governments may apply controls which restrict buyers' access to any foreign exchange needed to pay exporters.