It was amended substantially by the Labour government since 1997, to include the right to request flexible working time.

ERA 1996 section 1(2) states, that the main terms of the contract must be in writing and provided to the employee within two months of the start of their employment.

Whilst not definitive of the entire contract, the written statement is intended to be a guide for employees' of their rights, so that they know what kind of terms and conditions of employment to expect.

But it is also meant to provide an evidential basis on which to bring a claim for the breach of some right in a court or employment tribunal.

The requirement in law therefore to produce the written express terms is often forgotten as they have the basis of a contract in place.

These measures were originally added by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and are intended to provide broad protection to employees to report criminal offences, failures to abide by legal obligations, miscarriages of justice, health and safety violations, or environmental damage (s43B).

This does not give employees a right to commit a criminal offence in disclosing information, nor to breach the obligations of legally protected professional privilege (as might apply between a doctor and patient, or a lawyer and client).

Many employees will have higher notice periods in their contracts, or under the protection of collective agreements established by the workplace union.

It is important to note that these minimum periods are reciprocal – there is a "mutuality of obligation" – and so employees are also required to give such reasonable notice[failed verification].

(d) is that the employee could not continue to work in the position which he held without contravention (either on his part or on that of his employer) of a duty or restriction imposed by or under an enactment.So there is no restriction on management's right to dismiss (for instance, giving reasonable notice) if the employee is (a) just bad at his job, (b) not a nice person to work with (c) is redundant (see below) or (d) the employer is forced to sack someone because of a law (this last one does not come up often).

If they do there is an obligation to be accurate and fair, and that means not providing a so-called "kiss of death" reference on to the next potential employer: if only bad things can be said, nothing should be said at all (see the case, Spring v Guardian Assurance plc).

(4) In relation to a complaint which is presented as mentioned in subsection (3), the provisions of this Act, so far as they relate to unfair dismissal, have effect as if— The case of Beasley v National Grid Electricity Transmission upheld the argument that the time limit in Section 111(2)(a) operates absolutely in circumstances where it is reasonably practicable to comply with it: applications which are slightly late in being presented (88 seconds in the case of Beasley's application) are nevertheless late and fall out of the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

The employer, having discussed the issues, can make a written offer of termination, and the employee should be given 10 days to consider.

A Settlement Agreement is enforceable, but the employer is advised to have a "clawback" clause to allow recovery of any termination sums paid should evidence of misdeeds by the employee later arise.

So in O'Kelly v Trusthouse Forte plc [1983] ICR 728, Sir John Donaldson MR held that some waiters who were hired through an agency to do dinner functions were not "employees" (either of the function hall or the agency) because they did not, technically, have to turn up to work for a shift, and they could be sacked at any time.

Stephenson LJ decided (at 623) "There must, in my judgment, be an irreducible minimum of obligation on each side to create a contract of service."

And what he meant by this was an exchange of wages for work and sufficient control to make establish the employee-employer relationship.

Section 139 of the Act was at issue in Murray v Foyle Meats Ltd (1999), where the House of Lords determined that an employee's responsibilities as defined in their employment contract were not at issue when a lawful redundancy procedure was undertaken, but what the employee's actual day-to-day responsibilities are.

Section 20 of the act was at issue in Cairns v Visteon UK Ltd (2007) where the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that an agency worker could not claim unfair dismissal.