Career Advice

Section 12 of the Labour Act requires a written contract of employment for work done for a period of 6 months or for a number of working days equivalent to 6 months or more within a year. The contract shall express in clear terms the rights and duties of the parties. Particulars are listed in Schedule 1 to the Act, namely names of parties, date of first appointment, job title, pay (including overtime rates), hours of work, holidays, sickness and work-related injury entitlements, social security or pension scheme, termination notice and disciplinary rules/grievances. The contract must be signed by both parties and dated.

Special provisions relate to temporary and casual workers (Part X of the Labour Act). A contract of employment for a casual worker need not be in writing; but casuals have rights to minimum remuneration for each day worked, overtime and medical facilities. Temporary workers are entitled to the Act’s minima in respect of minimum wage, hours of work, rest periods, paid public holidays, night work and sick leave, irrespective of whatever terms agreed by the parties.

Subject to more favourable provisions for workers, negotiated in a collective agreement (s.19), grounds for termination (s.15) include:

• by mutual consent of the parties;
• by the worker on grounds of ill-treatment or sexual harassment;
• by the employer if the worker dies before the end of the employment period;
• by the employer if the worker is medically certified to be unfit for the job;
• by the employer if the worker is unable to do the job because of misconduct; and
• by redundancy (s. 65).

Notice must be in writing. Notice for termination follows a scale: when contracts are for more than 3 years, one month’s notice; when the contract is for less than 3 years, two weeks’ notice or two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice; or when contracts are on a week to week basis, 7 day’s notice. However, where the parties have signed an “at will” clause in the contract, that contract may be ended at the close of any day at will. Notwithstanding the notice provision, either party can buy out by paying a sum equal to the amount of remuneration which would have accrued to the worker during the period of notice.

Where an employee who is warned in writing commits a similar offence within six months the employer can terminate without notice.

Section 57(8) forbids an employer from dismissing a woman because of her absence form work on maternity leave. Section 50 protects the employment of a person who suffers a disability if the residual capacity for work is such that the worker can be found employment in the same or some other corresponding job in the same undertaking, but if no such job can be found, the employer may terminate the employment by notice.