• Work-life balance
• Documents

Things you'll need to know

• Knowing your legal rights
• The Working Time Regulations
• Part-time working
• Flexible working
• Parental and dependency leave
• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave
• Study leave for young workers
• Rights for learning reps

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Knowing your legal rights

Since April 2003 parents of children under six, or of disabled children under 18, have the right to apply to work flexibly and their employers will have a duty to consider their requests seriously. It does not provide an automatic right to work flexibly, however, and unions will still find that negotiating arrangements that benefit all staff is the most effective way of allowing employees to balance work and home.

However, in addition to the regulations on flexible working, there are legal rights relevant to working time and time off for parents that it is important to be aware of when negotiating improvements to the minimum legal entitlements.

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The Working Time Regulations

The Working Time Regulations 1998 introduced limits on working time for many workers in a number of key areas and gave a right to paid annual leave for the first time.

The provisions include:

• a 48 hour ceiling on the maximum average working week;
• entitlement to four weeks' annual leave and holiday pay;
• a ceiling on night workers' normal hours of an average of eight hours in every 24, and an absolute eight-hour ceiling for hazardous night work;
• minimum daily rest periods and weekly rest periods; and
• a right to rest breaks and a separate obligation on employers to provide rest breaks where work is monotonous or work rate pre-determined.

The regulations apply to all "workers", which means they cover any worker who has entered into or works under a contract of employment or similar contract for work or services. The only workers not covered by the regulations are the genuinely self-employed.

Workers may agree to opt out of the maximum working week, but this UK provision is to be reviewed by the European Union next year, and there is a strong chance that it will be removed.

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Part-time working

The Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 give protection to part-time workers. The regulations, which also apply to job sharers, ensure that part-time workers cannot be treated less favourably than comparable full timers in their terms and conditions. This means that part timers are entitled to be paid pro-rata to full timers for they hours they work, have the same entitlement to annual leave, maternity and parental leave and sick leave on a pro rata basis. Part-time workers also cannot be excluded from occupational pension schemes, except where employers can objectively justify it, for example, where the costs involved outweigh the benefit received.

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Flexible working

The Employment Act 2002 contains provisions giving parents of children under six, or of disabled children under 18, the right to apply to work flexibly and their employers will have a duty to consider their requests seriously. The draft regulations that implement these provisions have been published by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), and the final regulations will be in force from 6 April 2003. The DTI emphasis is on employers and employees finding a solution that suits them both, and has therefore not given an automatic right to work flexibly.

The TUC, in its response to the consultation on the draft regulations, has raised concerns over two issues that have yet to be determined. It wants the compensation ceiling for employers who breach the regulations to be set at one year's pay, not four weeks' as proposed by the employer lobby. The question of who can accompany a worker requesting flexible hours in a meeting with the employer also has to be decided - the TUC argues that the worker should be allowed to take a union representative from outside the workplace, whereas employers are pressing for it to be a colleague only.

In the main the final regulations are unlikely to be significantly different from the draft ones. They propose that employees who are responsible for a child under six years old, or 18 in the case of a disabled child, and have worked for their employer for 26 weeks, will be able to request:

• a change to the hours they work;
• a change to the times when they are required to work; or
• to work from home.

If agreed, this will be a permanent change to the employee's terms and conditions of employment. The employee will have to make an application in writing, giving details of how the change in working pattern will help them care for their child, and how the changes might affect the employer and how these could be accommodated.

The employer will hold a meeting with the employee (and their companion if desired) within 28 days to discuss how the request could be accommodated or consider any alternatives. Within 14 days after the meeting the employer will write to the employee either agreeing the new work pattern and start date or providing clear business grounds for why the application cannot be accepted.

The employee may appeal to the employer within 14 days if they are unhappy with the decision. They may also be able to take a case to an employment tribunal where the employer has not properly followed the procedures or has not given a sound business reason for rejecting the application. The tribunal would be able to order compensation if the employer is found to be in breach of the procedures, but it will not have the power to order the employer to implement a flexible working arrangement.

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) has also been used by both women and men whose employers failed allow them to work flexibly or reduce hours. Earlier this year two part-time computer analysts won a settlement against their employer who had made them both redundant after they had refused to return to working full-time, having reduced their hours after having children. As greater numbers of women work part-time they were able to claim that the employer was guilty of indirect discrimination against women by imposing a requirement for full-time work which women would find it more difficult to comply with than men.

On the other hand, a father, Neil Walkingshaw, also successfully claimed sex discrimination last year when his employer refused to allow him to reduce his hours to fit in with childcare. In this case the employer, the John Martin Group, had allowed four female employees to switch to part-time work in similar circumstances, and the tribunal found that he had been discriminated against on grounds of sex and awarded him £3,700 in compensation.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires employers to consider reasonable adjustments to the working environment of disabled workers, and a reduction in hours or flexible working would be considered one such reasonable adjustment.

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Parental and dependency leave

The Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999 provide rights to parental leave as well as the right to time off to deal with family emergencies. The rights were introduced to comply with an EU directive.

Working parents have the legal right to a period of unpaid leave. It can be up to four weeks in a year and overall no more than 13 weeks within the first five years of their child's life, as long as they have worked for their employer for at least a year.

Leave has to be taken in blocks of no less than a week. Employees wanting less than a week off, lose a week of the 13-week entitlement. The right applies to each parent and for each child.

If a child is adopted, the five years' leave is calculated from the time of adoption but expires if the child reaches the age of 18 before then. And if a child is disabled, the leave can be taken up to the child's 18th birthday but it still remains an overall 13 weeks and is still unpaid.

A legal challenge by the TUC lead the government to reverse the exclusion of parents of children born or adopted before 15 December 1999. Now parents of children born or placed for adoption between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999 have until the end of March 2005 to exercise their rights to the leave and can take it even though their children may be more than five years old.

Leave for family reasons gives employees the right to reasonable unpaid time off to deal with family emergencies involving parents, children, a spouse or co-habitee or anyone who looks to the employee for assistance. A family emergency is defined as sickness, accident, criminal injury, death, funerals, absence of the carer for a family member or serious problems at the child's school.

Some workplaces have negotiated better arrangements for parental leave than the legal minimum and there are also many examples of where leave to care for dependants is paid.

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Maternity, paternity and adoption leave

The Employment Act 2002 introduced a right to paid paternity and adoption leave for the first time from April 2003. Fathers will be entitled to two weeks' paternity leave paid at the same rate as statutory maternity pay. One parent in couples who adopt, or individuals who adopt, will also gain the right to the equivalent of statutory maternity leave.

Statutory maternity leave (SMP) was also improved from April 2003 with the flat rate of SMP rising to £100.00 a week, and the period it is payable will increase to 26 weeks in total, up from the current 18 weeks. Women who have worked for their employer for a year will also be entitled to take 52 weeks leave in total, an increase from 40 weeks currently.

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Study leave for young workers

Young workers without qualifications have the right to time off to undertake study or training to gain qualifications. Employees aged 16 or 17 who have left school without good enough qualifications have an entitlement to take reasonable paid time off work to study or train towards a "relevant qualification". This could be an academic or vocational course and need not be related to the employee's work, although it must be intended to help their employment prospects.

The amount of time off allowed should be "reasonable" taking account of the nature of the job and workplace. The employee will be paid at his/her normal hourly rate and has the right not to be victimised for requesting or taking study time.

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Rights for learning reps

From February 2003 union learning reps will be entitled to paid time off to carry out certain duties. The union has to give the employer written notice that the employee is a learning rep and that the training requirements have been met.

The activities of a learning rep can cover:

• analysing learning or training needs;
• providing information and advice;
• arranging learning or training;
• promoting the value of learning or training;
• consulting the employer; and
• preparing to carry out any of these activities.

An employer who permits time off for learning rep duties must pay the rep for this time if it is during working hours.

The TUC has produced a briefing on the code of practice drawn up by the advisory and conciliation service ACAS on the new rights. The TUC advises that the amount and frequency of time off should be reasonable in all the circumstances, taking into account issues such as the size of workplace and production and service needs, as well as the need for safety and security at all times. Employers in turn should have in mind potential difficulties for reps in communicating with all members, for example where there are part time workers, shift workers, workers in dispersed locations and workers with domestic responsibilities.

Employees who are members of recognised trade unions are permitted to take time off during working hours to access the services of a learning rep. However, the TUC guidance says: "There is no obligation on the employer to pay such employees for the time spent on accessing such services."

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