Employment Rights & Regulations

This section will give you a brief overview of your rights as an employee/trainee in the workplace.

Employment Rights Branch, which is part of the Department for Employment and Learning, is continuously working to promote a skilled and flexible labour market founded on principles of partnership. They deal with relationships between workers and their employers, including individual rights as well as collective arrangements.

The Branch is unable to provide advice on individual employment law issues. Requests for advice should be addressed to the Labour Relations Agency or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

Employment Rights Branch

 This Branch develops Northern Ireland's non-discriminatory employment legislation on:

• hours of work
• pay entitlement
• individual employment rights
• redundancy arrangements
• employee consultation
• trade unions and collective rights
• Implement European employment directives

It also provides: -

• Free publications including employment rights booklets.

• Facts at a glance, consultation documents, regulatory guidance and equality impact assessments for small firms

• A redundancy payment services to employees who have been made redundant and whose employer cannot or fails to pay their statutory redundancy payment.

• Staff and finance to enable the Office of the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal to hear and determine employment cases involving discrimination on the grounds of sex, disability, race, religious belief, political opinion or employment rights.

• The Secretariat and support to enable the Industrial Court to adjudicate on applications relating to the statutory recognition and derecognition of trade unions for collective bargaining purposes, where such recognition or derecognition cannot be agreed voluntarily.

• The means to act as a sponsoring department for The Northern Ireland Certification Office.

• Responsibility for the funding and board appointments for The Labour Relations Agency.

For detailed information about your rights at work, booklets and publications, visit the Employment Rights  website.