Employment laws are put in place to protect workers, ensure their safety, and preserve their value. Many employers might try to overlook these legal protections given to company employees for the sake of higher profits. Without having employment laws and similar statutes, workers would be subjected to any form of wrongdoing by their employers and superiors in the workplace. They could be vulnerable to many physical, emotional, and financial threats including discrimination, workplace injuries, and many income-related problems. The only way workers can protect themselves from their employers’ wrongdoing is by acknowledging their workplace rights and learning about all the employment laws forced on companies and business owners. Here is why it is important for workers to know their rights in the workplace.
To Protect Yourself at Work
When you acknowledge your health and safety rights at work, you will know what to do in the occurrence of a workplace injury. Workplace safety is regulated at the federal level in the United States by OSHA or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA enforces a number of workplace statutes that protect the safety and well-being of all workers across the states. As a worker, you have employment laws protecting your rights in several areas including workplace noise level, machinery, unsafe working conditions, temperature extremes, extreme vibrations, and electrical hazards. Repetitive work injuries, chemical hazards, biological hazards, and long working hours are also areas that are covered by the workplace safety and health employment laws. The enforcement and regulation of these workplace safety statutes were irregular and occasional when it was handled by another state, federal, and local laws before the establishment of OSHA.
To Prevent Discrimination
As a worker, you should know that you are protected against workplace discrimination under certain employment laws. You are protected by law against discrimination based on your color, race, religion, origin, sex, or disability. Employees are also protected in the case of discrimination against their old age, genetic information, and citizenship status. Without both, the state and federal employment laws, these protections wouldn’t have been in place. The truth is, many forms of employment discrimination can take place without employment regulations and laws to protect the workers. It’s not very uncommon for a company to refuse to hire a candidate who is over 40 years old. Many companies refuse to promote specific employees due to their race or ethnicity or even due to being members of certain religions.
Workers’ Comp Employment Laws
Most states enforce workers’ compensation insurance on employers of specific business size. Workers’ comp insurance covers the medical costs of the injuries caused to the workers in addition to a partial wage while the worker recovers from the injury. In return, the employees of a company that applies these laws are restricted in their rights to sue their employer for safety negligence. As per the lawyers from https://www.sherrodandbernard.com/, employers in Georgia can choose not to subscribe to workers’ comp insurance laws. Employers who choose not to subscribe take the full risk for the injuries that take place in their workplace. In that case, if the employer does not pay for the medical costs of an injured worker, the latter can sue for negligence and compensation.
Minimum Wage Employment Laws
Minimum wage laws ensure that a worker’s income is sufficient to support them in their basic life aspects. While the minimum wage in most US states ranges between $7 to $8, it’s enough to allow workers who receive tips to earn a moderate base rate. Before these laws were put into place, employers had full control over how much they pay their employees. This is why in times like the Great Depression, employees were paid extremely low wages that they couldn’t support their families. Eventually, the first federal minimum wage was set in the late 30s to put a stop to these low wages.
Child Labor Employment Laws
The end of the Great Depression was a major change in how employers hired their workers and how they paid their wages. In addition to setting the average minimum wage in the US, many employment laws were put in place to prevent the employment of children in hazardous jobs. These laws were not established before the Great Depression and therefore children were being used in dangerous labor that adults were unfit to perform in hard economic times. This, of course, led to the injury of many children as young as five and six years old. Nowadays, there are rules regarding the minimum work requirements for children in most industries.
It’s important to identify these employment laws and know your workplace rights in order to know what to do if you face any difficulties at work. Most of the time, employees don’t realize their lawful benefits until they speak to an attorney. Make sure you acknowledge all your workplace rights and employment protections in order to grant your benefits if you’re ever subjected to the wrongdoing of your employer.