Imagine if you will, you are an electrician.
Working as usual, you begin to feel unwell. Not in the sense of sickness, but something more than that. After asking your boss if you can go to the hospital, you are told that they would prefer you to finish your shift first.
Now imagine that the resulting heart attack meant you suffered with great anxiety about everyday tasks and having no contact from your workplace while you recovered over six months.
Discrimination at work UK
If you feel you are being treated differently or unfairly at work, you could be suffering from workplace discrimination.
By law, under the Equality Act 2010, people are protected from unfair treatment based on a number of ‘protected characteristics’.
These characteristics include gender, marital status, gender reassignment, pregnancy, maternity, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age.
As with most things however, when it comes to workplace discrimination it’s not as simple as a “yes – discrimination applies” or “no – it does not”. In fact, there are four types of discrimination.
Direct discrimination
This is where someone is treated less fairly or favourably because they hold at least one of the protected characteristics – which now include ethical veganism.
With direct discrimination, the person claiming they have been treated less favourably has to be able to demonstrate (known as the burden of proof) that there is evidence of being treated less favourably e.g. being overlooked for promotion because you are a woman of childbearing age in favour of a less qualified male.
There is one exception though. With pregnancy and maternity discrimination a formal comparator is not required.
Direct discrimination also covers less favourable treatment of someone with an association to another with a protected characteristic. Perhaps the best example of discrimination by association as it is also called is Coleman v Attridge Law C-303/06, in which the claimant suffered discrimination due to her son’s disability.
Indirect discrimination
Usually brought up with new policies acts or decisions, indirect discrimination disadvantages a group of people rather than one individual. The disadvantage, whilst it may not be intended, is again based on one of the nine protected characteristics set out above.
Any claim of indirect discrimination can be defended by the employer, so long as their is an objective justification for the introduction of any act or decision. This means that the employer must be able to demonstrate that the measure was introduced as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
If however there is a better and less discriminatory way of doing things, it will be a lot more difficult to justify or defend any claim of discrimination.
Harassment
Harassment, under the Equality Act 2010, relates to conduct related to a protected characteristic. To be considered harassment the conduct must have the purpose or effect of either:
- violating someone’s dignity; or
- creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.
However, a cautionary note to employers is that a claim for harassment unrelated to a protected characteristic can also be brought under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Such was the case of Majrowski v Guys from 2006.
Victimisation
The fourth type of discrimination is victimisation.
Victimisation provisions protect those who do or may carry out protected acts such as bringing discrimination claims, complaints over harassment, raising a grievance or becoming involved in another employee’s discrimination complaint. Victimisation occurs when someone is subjected to mistreatment or disadvantage because:
- they have done a protected act; or
- it is believed that they have done, or may do, a protected act.
Protected acts include:
- making a claim or complaint of discrimination under the Equality Act;
- giving any evidence or information to help someone else who has made a complaint or a claim under the Act;
- doing anything else related to the Act; or
- saying that someone has done something unlawful under the Act.
Remember our electrician? That wasn’t a made up story. The Sunderland based man was awarded £12,095 after a remedy hearing in July 2020. Discrimination at work then, is no laughing matter.