Employment disputes signify the argument emerging from real or claimed allegations, discrimination, unjustified demotions, failing to promote, employ or recommend someone for employment, or breach of contracts or laws in the workplace or organization.
WHAT ARE GENERAL PROTECTIONS?
General protections are the collection of protections that prevent a range of workplace disputes in the workplace environment. Some of the problems that come under the general protections umbrella are discrimination, dismissal (wrongful, unfair), sexual harassment, Coercion and Undue Influence
COMMON EMPLOYMENT DISPUTES AND HOW GENERAL PROTECTIONS PREVENT THOSE DISPUTES
WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION
An employee can claim workplace discrimination under general protections. If an employee is facing issues and discrimination because of their race, religion or sex or any physical disability, or the employee is facing mental disturbance because of anyone in the organization, this all comes from the workplace discrimination. And general protections will reserve the rights of the employees and will prevent workplace disputes in the organization.
UNFAIR DISMISSAL
Unfair dismissal is also the cause of many workplace disputes and the rights here are also reserved in the general protections. Unfair dismissal is when an employer unfairly terminates the employee may be because of an emergency absence or maybe the employer creates hard situations for the employee so that he is forced to resign from his job. This situation may arise in situations such as when an employer increases the working hours of the employee. There can be mental stress which will lead the employees forced to resign from their position. When such situations of forced resignations arise they are of unfair dismissal and these are considered the constructive dismissal and one can bring a claim of unfair dismissal.
WORKPLACE HARASSMENT
Workplace harassment is when an employee is being sexually harassed, no matter male or female. Sexual harassment may include inappropriate touch, forced touching like hugging, sexual jokes and gestures or making sexual remarks on someone’s body or fitting. These all come under workplace harassment and must not be tolerated in a working environment. This causes disputes and problems for the employees not only physically but also causes emotional and mental stress on the employee who is going through these problems. It is important for the employee who is facing the issue to take the required action and speak for themselves so that this is not repeated in the organization. There should be strong policies regarding these matters and basic rights. General protection also protects and preserves the rights of the employees.
COERCION AND UNDUE INFLUENCE
Coercion is when one party demands the employee or any individual to do something or ask for something and if that thing is not done as they want, the other party will use violence against the individual or the employee. A very simple example of coercion can be how a bully student asks for lunch or anything from the other student and if the student does not accept the demand the student is getting beaten by the bully.
Whereas the undue influence as the name suggests is in contrast when an employee or any person who has more power in some cases, can dominate his/her ideas and persuade the other employee on how he or she wants the decision to be done which is unfair and has the advantage ton him/her over the other decision or to obtain some type of advantage through the employee and this is mostly done in the kind of situations where psychological manipulation is easy or in some circumstances there are certain relations in which the employee becomes easily manipulated.
General protections also protects the rights of employees in the matter of coercion and undue influence, these matters are very important to address as these may negatively affect the organization or workplace environment because of any influenced decisions advantaging certain parties in the organization. This is also unprofessional in any organization to make decisions under the influence of people just because they are related to you in some matter and one can’t decline their demands. And this impacts negatively on other employees as they will feel unjust in different matters and the reputation of the organization will also be affected.