New sexual harassment laws
by Emma
A warning to employers about an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 which came in on 6 April 2008 to protect staff from sexual harassment from customers, suppliers and others that they encounter in the course of their work. This change has come about after a legal challenge brought last year by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that the government had not properly implemented the European Equal Treatment Directive in relation to protection against harassment.
The new law allows an employee to bring a claim against an employer who fails to take reasonable steps to protect them from harassment by third parties where the employer knows that harassment has occurred on at least two other occasions. Interestingly the harassment does not need to have been carried out by the same person on each occasion.
This law will have implications in many different sectors which are client-facing. Hotels, pubs and restaurants, for example, will now be potentially liable if their employees are harassed by clients. This is something that will be very difficult for employers to control. It is not possible to take disciplinary action against clients in the same way as employees. There could also be situations where employers need the business from the client concerned and might not wish to take issue with them about their treatment of an employees. Just something to think about…
For an article on the subject from Personnel Today see here
The Regulations bringing in the change can be read here
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Nice to see that they have such strong laws in place to protect the employee.
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Joel said at April 17th, 2008 at 4:02 pm