The proposed changes in employment legislation and the increase in the number of employment
related queries to CAB over the last number of years prompted NIACAB to evaluate client’s knowledge
of basic employment rights and the individual circumstances of CAB clients in employment.
This report presents the findings of a survey of CAB clients in Northern Ireland during the month of May
2002. The questionnaire was used to measure employment rights knowledge and the individual
employment circumstances of those who approached CAB with an employment related query during
the period of the monitoring exercise. Clients who came to CAB in May 2002 with an employment
query were asked to complete the questionnaire.

The results from the monitoring exercise show that less than 1% of respondents knew all ten of the
employment rights. In general, knowledge rates were quite low with over 89% of respondents
questioned knowing five or less of the employment rights.

A more worrying trend is that 86% of respondents are not in receipt of one or more of their statutory
employment rights. Only 14% are currently in receipt of all of the basic statutory employment rights on
which they were questioned. Even more disturbing is that when respondents were asked if they had
ever been afraid to demand any of their statutory employment rights, if they felt that these had not
been provided 24% indicated that they had been afraid to do so. A small percentage (4%) stated that
they had actually been dismissed for trying to assert a statutory employment right.
Statutory rights are the basic rights that must be provided for employees by law. It is clear from the
findings of this report that there is a lack of awareness of basic employment rights and that more needs
to be done in terms of raising awareness and enforcing these rights.