Rights and Responsibilities

Overview of rights and responsibilities at work

This section presents an overview of the key rights and responsibilities of workers in the UK, many of which are guaranteed by law.

Claiming rights: Role of trade unions in the UK

A trade union is an organisation made up of members who are workers. The main aim of a trade union is to protect the interests of its members. This section outlines the history of trade unions in the UK and their role in advancing workers' rights.

Workplace issues: Past and present

The struggle for workers’ rights is constantly evolving, with new issues emerging as the nature of work changes. While some struggles, such as the campaigns to restrict working hours date back over two centuries, others, like the campaign for a living wage, are more recent. The history and the current law relating to some of these rights is outlined in this section.

Workers' rights in a globalised world

Globalisation is a set of ongoing and uneven processes through which people and places across the globe have become increasingly interconnected. Because of the growth of information and communication technologies, we live in a globalized world where trade, investment, and distribution of production takes place on a global scale, and businesses now operate across different countries.