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Blog posts tagged Equality Act
Casual sexism? So what’s the problem?
January 27, 2011
Last week Wolverhampton Wanderers' home game against Liverpool was distinguished by a more interesting conflict off the pitch than on. Two Sky football commentators, spotting the assistant referee Sian Massey, announced that female football officials didn’t understand the rules and predicted Ms Massey would make mistakes during the match.
“Somebody better get down there and explain offside to her,” Richard Keys said of Ms Massey. Former Scotland striker Andy Gray replied: "Can you believe that? A female linesman. Women don't know the offside rule."
The tape of the off-air conversation reached a newspaper. In the event, Ms Massey correctly called a crucial borderline decision during the match, and the two commentators have been taken off the air. Andy Gray was subsequently fired.
Hearing these ignorant comments made my blood boil. Of course I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
What really makes me angry is that I’m fairly certain there is a large majority of likeable, normal guys out there whose response would be “What’s all the fuss about?” Several commentators have acknowledged that men’s football is rife with overt, casual sexism. And “sexism” could arguably be replaced with “racism” or “homophobia”.
These sorts of causally sexist/racist/homophobic comments are a great example of the sort of outdated behaviour the recently introduced Equality Act legislation has been put in place to stamp out from the workplace. If you allow your staff or customers on your premises free reign to voice similar opinions, you could face claims against you for discrimination.
So business owners who cannot see “what the problem is” should be worried. Allowing casually discriminatory behaviour to persist could lead them straight to an employment tribunal.
Gossip Girl gets rights
October 05, 2010
One of the lesser-known changes to the law in the Equality Act is that businesses must stop using pay “gagging” clauses to keep their affairs discreet. The new law is pretty straightforward - employees who suspect a gender pay gap is afoot can no longer be disciplined for revealing, or discussing, pay with each other.
If you grumble at or discipline your staff for talking about their wages and benefits, you could be liable to claims for victimisation – possibly resulting in an employment tribunal, no joke for you or the firm. But is the threat of a court case OTT for a boss trying to ban staff gossip?
Many people think so. Writing in the Daily Mail, Duncan Bannatyne points out the original Equal Pay Act of 1970 improved lives, but chunters: “This 2010 update will not”. He maintains that this particular tweak to equality law will “damage the morale of a workplace” and suggests that: “Any difference [in pay] is immediately cast as ‘unfairness’, with the employer as the abuser and the employee the victim.”
It’s easy to understand, and sympathise with, employers’ concern for Political Correctness Gone Mad. Especially when, like Bannatyne, you believe in automatic equal rights and have been a highly successful employer for years. As staff numbers trooping to tribunals increase yearly, the creeping fear of an employee springing a trumped-up case will hardly be soothed by the news that in, another legal add-on, staff can now claim discrimination even though there may be no one to compare them against.
Yet maybe what Bannatyne calls “lunatic legislation” is not so unreasonable. These days over half the UK’s workforce are women. For full-timers, the equal pay gap is currently over 16 per cent. Women get paid 35 per cent less for part-time work.
Forty years on from the Equal Pay Act, that’s something of a surprise, and not in a good way. Yet Bannatyne hints that the new law “could be enough for some business owners to take a look at this brave new working environment and say: ‘I’m out.’”
In the UK, the most notable career legacy most women leave from their working lives is the six figures in cash they never get paid. Despite the risky life of an entrepreneur, that’s not a problem Bannatyne or his fellow business owners are liable to face.
Are you ready for the Equality Act? 1 October sees a huge change in UK law – but will it affect your firm?
September 13, 2010
Big changes to business law come into force twice a year – in April and October. 1 October sees employment law changing yet again – the minimum wage is going up, and the Equality Act kicks in.
If you’re a manager battling hard times the last thing you need is more law, but you’ll be pleased to hear that this round of law changes might end up making your life more straightforward. The key new law, the Equality Act, harmonises the current muddlesome raft of equality and diversity legislation into one single set of rules.
Although the Act is a huge piece of legislation, there won't be any major changes to employee rights. However, you should bear in mind that various types of bad business behaviour have now been specifically made unlawful:
- associative discrimination: when a worker is treated badly because they associate with another person who possesses a ‘protected characteristic’ (such as disability)
- harassment by a third party: employers could now be liable for harassment of their staff by people they don’t employ themselves, such as customers
- indirect discrimination: which could occur when you have an in-house policy that applies to everyone but in practice disadvantages a group of workers.
The Act also makes various changes to victimisation and harassment rules. There aren’t any changes to maternity/parental leave rights at the moment, although some legislation may appear for April 2011.
Even if this doesn’t affect you right now, you may want to cast an eye over your HR policies to get rid of mentions of old rules – law like the Disability Discrimination Act will no longer exist (although its obligations do). Acas has produced a crystal-clear one-page chart that sets out – in glorious technicolour - all the employer’s responsibilities under the Act.
Changes to the the national minimum wage (NMW) are even more straightforward – all the rates increase a little, and there is a new rate for any apprentices you have. From 1 October, you should pay your NMW staff:
- £5.93 an hour to workers aged 21 and over
- £4.92 an hour to workers aged 18-20
- £3.64 an hour to workers aged 16-18
The main rate - £5.93 – now applies to workers aged 21-plus (was 22-plus). Apprentices - who previously didn’t qualify - should now be paid at least £2.50 an hour if they are under 19, or 19 and over and in their first apprenticeship year.
And that’s it – some businesses in the pub trade, recruitment agencies and modeling agencies will need to tweak their working practices, but overall, this CCD is, mercifully, legislation-light for small firms.
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