Your Rights at Work

Disability Discrimination Act 1995

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 gives disabled people at work protection from discrimination. That means employers:

Must not treat a disabled person less favourably because of a reason relating to their disability without a justifiable reason;
Are required to make reasonable adjustments to working conditions or the workplace where that would help to accommodate a particular disabled person.

Equal Pay Act 1970

Employers must give men & women equal treatment in the terms and conditions of their employment contract if they are employed on:

‘Like work’ – work that is the same or broadly similar;
Work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation study or
Work found to be of equal value.

It is for the employer to show that there is a genuine reason for any difference in pay for this ‘like work’ which is not based on the sex of an individual.

Fixed-term Employees Regulations 2002

The Regulations aim to ensure that employees on fixed-term contracts are treated no less favourably than comparable permanent employees. Examples of fixed term work include:

Agricultural workers doing ‘seasonal’ work;
Shop assistants working for the Christmas period;
Employees covering maternity leave;
Employees doing a specific task – like painting a house.

Under the regulations these employees have the right to the same terms and conditions of employment as comparable permanent employees.

Rehabilitating of Offenders Act 1974

Under the Act, many ex-offenders are given certain employment rights if their convictions become ‘spent’. Broadly speaking anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offence and who is not convicted of a further offence during a specified period (the rehabilitation period) becomes a ‘rehabilitated person’. This means that:

The conviction does not have to be declared for most purposes, such as applying for a job;
Employees are given protection against dismissal or exclusion from any office, profession occupation or employment (with some exceptions) because of their spent convictions and
Employers cannot prejudice a person in any way because of a spent conviction.

A conviction resulting in a prison sentence of more than 2 years can never be spent.

Part-time Workers (prevention of less favourable treatment) Regulations 2000

The regulations aim to ensure that part-time workers are not treated less favourable than comparable full-timers. Principally this means they should:

Receive the same rates of pay;
Not be excluded from training simply because they work part-time;
Receive holiday entitlement pro-rata to comparable full timers;
Have any career break schemes, contractual maternity leave and parental leave made available to them in the same way as for full time workers and
Not be treated less favourable when workers are selected for redundancy.

Race Discrimination Act

The Act makes it illegal to treat a person less favourable than others on racial grounds. Race discrimination covers all aspects of employment – from recruitment to pay and training to the termination of a contract. Discrimination covers four areas:

Direct discrimination – treating someone less favourable on racial grounds;
Indirect discrimination – applying practices that might favour one racial group over another;
Harassment – unwanted conduct that violates a person’s dignity and creates a hostile or degrading environment;
Victimisation – unfair treatment of an employee which has made a complaint about racial discrimination.

However a job may be restricted to people of a particular race or ethnic origin, if one of these characteristics is a genuine occupational requirement. e.g. to achieve authenticity a theatre company may need black actors to depict certain scenes.

Sex Discrimination Act 1975

Generally employers should not discriminate on grounds of sex, marriage or because someone intends to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone gender reassignment. Sex discrimination covers all aspect of employment – from recruitment to termination of contract. There are limited exceptions: the Act permits employers under certain conditions to train employees of one sex in order to fit them for particular work in which their sex has recently been under-represented; they may also encourage the under-represented sex to take up opportunities to do that work.

The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003

The Regulations give protection from discrimination on grounds connected with sexual orientation. This includes ‘orientation towards someone of the same sex (lesbian or gay men), opposite sex (heterosexual) or both sexes (bisexual)
The new law means that an organisations’ recruitment and selection procedures, as well as employment practice, must treat everyone fairly regardless of their sexual orientation.

Age Discrimination Regulations October 2006

The regulations prohibit direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of age. The legislation includes prohibition of harassment and victimisation on the grounds of age; a default retirement age of 65 and a requirement for employers who set their retirement age below that age to provide objective justification or change it; removal of the current upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights; they change the way in which statutory redundancy age and unfair dismissal basic awards are calculated. Employers are obliged to inform employees in writing at least 6 months but no more than 12 months in advance of their intended retirement date. Employers must take into consideration any request from the employee to continue working beyond retirement age.

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Acas website at www.acas.org.uk and also from the Department of Trade and Industry at www.dti.gov.uk/.

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