What Are the 3 Most Important Rights to Be Aware of as an Employee?

employee rights

Being an employee in a big name company can feel like you’re on top of the world. You’ve been hired for your skills and expertise in order to help projects get completed on time. Working full-time should be a rewarding experience.

However, there are some employers who aren’t interested in treating their employees very fairly. Most employees don’t expect this to happen until it’s too late. So it’s best to know what your rights are as an employee so that you can have recourse on your side when your employment starts to go sour.

The Ham Commission Report

The basis for employee rights can be found in the Ham Commission Report, which led to the development of OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Act). It was here that the three basic rights for workers were listed so that wage theft attorneys could get involved when there was wrongdoing. These basic rights are stated below.

The Right to Know

Employers and supervisors must make their employees aware of any hazards that are present. These are hazards related to other people, the equipment involved, the materials being used, the environment of the workplace, and the processes that are used during employment.

Employees must be provided with information and trained on these dangerous hazards that they are being exposed to in order to minimize the risk of workplace injuries. A failure to do so gives an employee recourse to have the work environment inspected by a government official.

The Right to Participate

Employees also have the right to participate in the examination and assessment of the work environment and everything within. They have the right to ask questions, especially ones that concern their health and safety or that of a coworker.

Employees can participate in this process by bringing unsafe conditions to the attentions of their employers so that they can be rectified. In the event that nothing is changed, employees should file complaints with OSHA as recourse. After all, it is their health and safety on the line.

The Right to Refuse Unsafe Work

Where employees believe that the work environment is a danger to themselves or someone else, they have the right to refuse to work in such conditions. There is a detailed process involved to refuse unsafe work, but it is ultimately the employer’s responsibility to respond to such refusals.

What an employer cannot do is retaliate in some form. This means that they cannot fire or demote an employee who refuses to work in unsafe conditions. The employer has the responsibility of rectifying the situation so that it is safe for work.

Knowing your rights as an employee beforehand gives you a lot more power than you originally thought. There’s no reason you should be exposed to conditions that endanger your health and safety, especially if your employer has done nothing to improve conditions. Your employer may be in control of your paycheck but that doesn’t mean you can be treated like a pawn on the chessboard to be sacrificed for his profit.