Reference.......
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9. The implementation "enforcement" of a contract of employment seems to have caused confusion in the minds of Mr. Burn and some other people. Law in this country may be "criminal" or "civil" and sometimes a mixture of the two. Criminal law is "enforced" by the public authorities (Attorney General and his representatives, police, inspectors whose duty it is to ensure observance of certain laws etc.). "Civil" law is a matter between citizens or inhabitants of the country.
E 10.
F
In broad terms the only "crime" connected with a contract of employment in this country is failure to have one as required by the Contract of Employment Act. Failure to keep to the terms of the contract is not a "crime" and no public authority has any duty or right to "enforce" the terms of the contract of employment.
11.
If either party commits a breach of a contract of employment, the other may,
under civil law, take him to court and try to get the court to "enforce" the contract. More frequently this means workers accusing employers of failure to pay the wages, give the holidays, provide the board and lodging etc.etc. which the contract says they are to have: since 1963 they have also been able to sue for minimum notice of termination of employment. Employers have always had great difficulty in suing workers over implementation of the terms of the contract since almost the only grounds on which they could normally do so were that they had suffered loss on account of the breach by the worker and they could then claim damages. It is well known that even when an employer could prove this he frequently found it difficult to obtain any damages awarded by a court and also found that the cost of taking proceedings were usually more than it was worth. The 1963 Act requires a worker to give notice, but this has not really brought much comfort to employers. The civil law is unaltered and basically the complaining party has to prove loss or damages still: in other words, an employer or employee who considers that he has incurred loss because he has not been given the notice (or, where an employee is concerned, the minimum pay) to which he is entitled under the Act, can bring an action for damages in the Court if he cannot obtain satisfaction by other means. The important point in this particular context is that the worker who walks out, giving notice or not, despite his having signed the contract for (let us say) two years, does not commit a "crime" under our laws (and indeed those of most countries) and is therefore liable to no punishment or penalty through his action risk of being sued for damages by his employer.
G
only to the
12. I ought to perhaps add that if a contract contained anything which was not in accordance with our law or, perhaps more correatly, conflicted with it, a criminal offence might arise. For example, many forms of employment in Britain and this certainly includes most employment in shops, hotels, catering establishments etc. are regulated to some extent by Wages Council which lay down minimum wages, normal hours of work, leave, and sometimes minimum fringe benefits such as board and lodging: if any employer were to give less than the statute laid down, that employer would commit a criminal offence, even if the worker had signed a contract accepting the (illegal) terms. In such a case the public authorities could prosecute the employer for committing the offence of breaking the law about wages councils not the law about the contract.
13. What this all boils down to is that the employers who are the clients of Mr. Burn could sue the workers for loss or damages, if they could prove that they had suffered, but so long as the workers give the notice stipulated in the agreement (which by law must be not less than one week but may lawfully be more) I doubt if it would really be worth their while. It is true therefore, that the law does not greatly help the employers whose workers do not adhere to the contract which they have accepted.
14.
U.K. Ministry of Labour
Frankly I think the contributions of the Ministry of Labour have been somewhat unhelpful. Their replies to Mr. Burn, individual employees and employers, seem to have been strictly and coldly correct. Surely the decent thing to do would be to get someone fairly senior in the appropriate local
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