Discrimination

Discrimination

Although it is against the law, many employees are discriminated against because of a protected characteristic. The Equality Act 2010 sets out nine protected characteristics, which are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage & civil partnership, pregnancy & maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

There are different forms of discrimination which can be related to the above, such as harassment, direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, victimisation:

Direct discrimination - treating someone with a protected characteristic less favourably than others. For example someone who is disabled is treated less favourably than someone who is not disabled, the comparator. Failure to make a reasonable adjustment for a disabled employee is also an example of direct discrimination.

Indirect discrimination - having a Provision, Criteria or Practice (PCP)  in place that applies to everyone, but puts someone with a protected characteristic at an unfair disadvantage.

Harassment - unwanted conduct/behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them. For example, sexual harassment or being on the end of racist comments.

Victimisation - treating someone unfairly because they’ve complained about discrimination or harassment. This could even be the case if you’ve been a witness in someone else’s discrimination complaint and you’re now being punished for it.

We understand that it can be difficult to make a complaint of discrimination, for fear of reprisals as discriminators are usually more senior managers and it can be difficult to prove. However, by making the complaint even if it is not upheld it can ensure that the behaviour of the discriminating party stops their conduct. Or it can enable you to plan an exit strategy if that is what you want, where your Trade Union Representative can try to negotiate a settlement on your behalf. We can discuss this with you and set the right strategy to try to get you the outcome that you’d prefer.