Steven Mitchell Sack is called the employee advocate for a reason. His mission is to protect the rights of employees and he has been enforcing the labor rights of employees, executives and sales representatives for over thirty years. With his book “The Employee Rights Handbook: Effective Legal Strategies to Protect Your Job from Interview to Pink Slip,” he has created an excellent resource for employees, providing information to understand employment rights and protect and assert yourself to collect what what is owed If you’re wondering about your rights at work, this book has the answers.

First of all, this is not a quick little guide, but a comprehensive tomb covering many areas of employment law. The book is just under six hundred pages before the glossary and index push it past the six hundred page mark. However, despite its length, this book is written in easy-to-understand language and is full of practical advice. Unfortunately, the law is always changing, so things in any law book can become outdated. The third revised and expanded edition came out in 2010, so it is currently up to date. This is the edition I am reviewing.

The book is well organized and contains a detailed table of contents, as well as a list of the complete agreements, forms, sample letters, and checklists that are included in the book. And these items are extremely valuable to the person who wants to use them. Many of the letters need little modification to make them work for many people.

The first part of the book focuses on getting hired right and contains chapters on avoiding pre-hiring abuse and negotiating the job. The second part deals with how to protect your rights at work and has chapters on employee benefits, recognizing the rights and conduct of employees at work and everything related to discrimination. Part Three’s focus is how to avoid being wrongfully fired and what to do if you are, and it provides chapters on recognizing when you’ve been wrongfully fired, facing the music and taking charge, and post-termination issues. The final part, Part Four, is about collecting what is owed. The two chapters focus on litigation and employment alternatives and on hiring a lawyer to protect his rights.

Once again, this is a big book with a lot of information. Unless you want to be an employee rights expert, you will most likely read the sections that are most relevant to your circumstances. So if you need information about your rights as an employee, this authoritative text is an excellent reference to consult. Sack has made complicated information readable and made understanding your employment rights accessible to everyone.