National Minimum Wage -  From 1st October 2008 the rates are:

Adult rate (from age 22+) - £5.73 per hour
Development rate  (18-21) - £4.77 per hour
Youth rate (16-17) - £3.53 per hour.  NB: 16 and 17 year old apprentices are exempt from the young workers rate.

Minimum Holiday Entitlement - From 1st October 2007 the legal minimum is 4.8 weeks a year (24 days if you work a five day week); there is no statutory right to get bank holidays on top of this.

The holiday entitlement will increase again to 5.6 weeks (28 days if you work a five day week) from 1 April 2009.

28 day cap - The new entitlements will be limited to a maximum of 28 days. So although they are referred to in weeks (4.8 then 5.6), if you work a 6 day week your minimum entitlement will be 28 days from 1 October 2007 and will not increase again in April 2009. Many employers offered more than the statutory entitlement before the increase and continue to do so.

Statutory redundancy - UK workers are caught up in the turmoil of the free market and global competitiveness. Employers, particularly in the telecom industry, are cutting staffing levels to the bone and redundancies are being announced on a daily basis.

In recognised companies, the union is always there - in the workplace. It is much harder for union members in non-recognised companies. In order to assist members we have bookmarked redundancy information from the TUC to provide helpful and up-to-date advice on statutory redundancy procedures, now available at workSMART/redundancy

The maximum week's pay for the purposes of calculating statutory redundancy payments is £380 for redundancies. For a handy redundancy payment calculator click... ready reckoner

Working life and family-friendly policies - In order to assist members we have bookmarked this section from the TUC's workSMART website to provide helpful and up-to-date advice