Your legal rights as a worker: Where they come from
Your employment agreement
What is an employment agreement?
Your employment agreement sets out the terms and conditions for your relationship with your employer.
It can be either:
- an individual agreement – that is, between one employee and one employer, or
- a collective agreement – that is, between two or more employees, and one or more employers, and one or more unions.
For more information, see: “Different types of employment agreements and arrangements”.
The terms of your employment agreement include what is in the written agreement, plus any extra terms that you and your employer agree on verbally. Your employment agreement may also require you to comply with terms set out in other documents that affect your rights and obligations as an employee, including policies, codes of conduct, handbooks and company rules.
By signing the employment agreement you are legally agreeing to follow all of these terms and policies.
Does my employer have to give me a written agreement?
Employment Relations Act 2000, ss 54, 64, 65, 235B Employment Relations (Infringement Offences) Regulations 2019, reg 5
Every employee must have a written employment agreement.
If your employer doesn’t provide you with a written agreement, a labour inspector can give them an infringement notice (like a speeding ticket) requiring them to pay a $1,000 fine. Alternatively, you or a labour inspector can ask the Employment Relations Authority (the “ERA”) to order your employer to pay a financial penalty.
Your employer must keep a signed copy of the agreement. They must also give you a copy, if you ask for one. If they breach those rules, the ERA can order them to pay a penalty.
Your rights if you don’t have a written agreement
You have legal rights as an employee even if you don’t have a written employment agreement, because a verbal agreement between you and your employer is still legally valid.
The terms and conditions of your employment relationship will include:
- the terms and conditions you’ve agreed to verbally
- the normal practices in your workplace
- the protections for employees in the Employment Relations Act 2000
- the minimum conditions and protections guaranteed by Acts like the Holidays Act 2003, Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and the Wages Protection Act 1983 (see: “Employment conditions and protections”)
- the basic obligations that the courts see as implied in all employment relationships (see below).
