The recent increase in claims filed with the tribunal raises serious concerns about employment equality in commercial businesses, organizations, and cooperatives. It was one of the key elements that contributed to the creation of the present legal framework for employment equity and dispute resolution in the UK. Employment equity has long dominated discussions of business and economics around the globe. (Dolvik & Martin, 2014). Restoring human dignity in the workplace has been the final goal of these discussions. Due to the ignorance and desperation of ignorant employees who are submissive to their bosses, numerous human indignities are frequent in workplaces. (Oosthuizen & Naidoo 2008). Various issues bring about conflicts and disputes in the work environment. These include Employment equity, payment, discrimination, contracts of employment among many more; the most common is the Employment equity, which refers to the employment of entities using an impartial and unbiased approach (Bevans Solicitors 2011). It can be defined as a program created to ensure proportional inclusion of employees without any forms of discrimination. Equal distribution raises concerns about justice perceptions by the parties involved in the tripartite employment association (Cotter 2016). As a result, most organizations are faced with challenges in the efficient and effective implementation of the Employment Equity legal framework. Discrimination is common in the workplaces, and it manifests in different forms concerning age, gender, and race (Chitty 2015). A classic example is hiring individuals from a specific racial background. An individual can also be discriminated due to his or her religious beliefs, political affiliations or possession of a criminal record.
The three case studies present various key issues about the Work equity in an internet service provider company; British Telenet Limited. Primarily, racial discrimination is presented in the first case involving Ade, Phil, and Rory. Individuals sharing a common skin colour, history, language, geographical locations, religion, ethnicity, and traditions are said to belong to a particular race (Great Britain 2013). Racial discrimination is defined as the unlawful act of discrimination from racial, national, colour and ethnic background. Therefore, the belief that non-white individuals should not hold senior positions in the company by Rory is a form of racial discrimination.
The second major issue highlighted is age discrimination. It refers to discrimination concerning age bracket. Most companies are faced with this challenge due to the pressure of economic productivity. Approximatly 25 to 55 years old age bracket is considered to be more productive in comparison to the other age brackets (Nairns 2012). Therefore the aged and elderly employees are either given less productive tasks or often forced into early retirement. It is evident in the case study where the British Telenet Company has a policy of promoting graduate recruits who are between the ages of 25 to 30 years only. In addition, Rory and Phil, who are subordinate members of an elderly Asian lady, Ade is of the opinion that she should be taking care of her family instead of being a team leader in the company. The case poses an issue of retirement of the elderly individuals, the big question is whether elderly individuals have the capacity and ability to be both productive and effective.
The above issues are associated with Victimization and Harassment. This refers to the undesirable behavior of degrading, humiliating, intimidating and offending other employees. It takes various forms including malicious rumormongering, unfair exclusion and negative criticism. It can either occur between two individuals or amongst groups of people. In the Scenario presented, Ade is constantly teased by her co-workers. Moreover, referring to them as the staff-members often undermine the work of the web service development by ‘You-tube department.'
Lastly, wrongful and unfair dismissal of employees is a key issue highlighted in the scenario B of the case of British Telenet Limited. This refers to the breach of trust between the employer and employee regarding the employment contract and terms and terms of employment. The contact of the new employee, Suzy, terminated when she expressed her concern over the other employees watching videos the whole day. The employer has the right to dismiss an employee under restricted legal guidelines. The legality of dismissal of the employee is, therefore, an issue for discussion. Concerning employees and employers relationship sustainable change is subject to active participation in partnerships of both parties in recognizing key equity issues and asserting a response plan. Employment Equity has to be fair, just and impartial because it involves the financial well-being of employees (Doyle-Bedwell, 2008). The Anti-discrimination laws developed the by various agencies in the United Kingdom provide a legal framework for employee and employer conduct and relationship in the workplace.The Laws help promote age, racial equity in the work environment by providing fairness in recruitment and selection of new employees and treatment of employees. It also provides the right, guideline and basis to make a complaint to an Employment Tribunal in an effort to seek justice. Therefore, this report evaluates the legitimacy and legal merits of harassment and discrimination claims of the scenario B cases based on the Equity act 2010 legal framework (Butler 2016).
Sources and application of the law
The current main statutes of employment include The Employment Regulation Act of 1996 and include Equity Act of 2010. The acts help to facilitate and promote strong industrial relations practice. The main objective of the employment law is to ensure equal and fair treatment of all individuals at work (Bevans Solicitors 2011). They provide a legal framework for the protection of the employer, job seekers and employees. In addition, they protect the independent contractors, agency workers, and temporal workers. Other statutes include; The Trade and Labor Relations (Consolidation) Act of 1992 and rehabilitation of offenders Act of 1974.
The main sources of the laws In Britain include the legislation, the common law, and European Union laws. Of great significance is the employment discrimination directive, The EC Council Directive No., 76/207 that promotes racial, gender and age equality in the work environment (employment, promotion, working environment and vocational training). Various developments have been made on the regulations over the years.An example is The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations enacted on 1st October 2006. The EC Race Discrimination Directive (EC 2000/43) which was adopted in 2000 and later on implemented in July 2003 (Butler, 2016).
The Equity Act 2010
The main development was the Employment Equity Act in 2010. It constitutes various characteristics including Age, Civil partnership and marriage, Religion and belief, pregnancy, gender, race, disability and sexual orientations under the various sections. It protects various entities, including Contract workers under section 41 EqA 2010), Employees under section 83 EqA 2010), Partnerships and LLPs ( 44 and 45 EqA 2010), Police officers (s 42 EqA 2010), Officeholders (s 49 EqA 2010), Barristers and advocates(s47and48EqA2010), and Other entities (Wadham et al 2016).
The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against employees, job seekers and trainees because of the respective property characteristics. The application guidelines for Direct discrimination are stipulated under section 13 of the Equity Act 2010.The discrimination law is categorized into three; Direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, and victimization. First, direct discrimination is also referred to as blatant discrimination. It occurs when an individual is considered as inferior due to their inherent or acquired characteristic for example race, sex, marital status or disability. An example is a white-race dominated company’s failure to employ an individual of black origin. An individual is said to discriminate another person due to a specific protected feature if he treats him less favorably than he treats others (Nairns 2012)Therefore the legitimacy of the claim is dependent on the comparison of the employer's treatment of the specific employee in comparison to other employees.
Secondly, indirect discrimination is referred to as either covert or hidden discrimination. It occurs where there exists either practice, policy, procedure or rule, which applies to all employees but specifically, disadvantages individuals of a specific characteristic. An individual indirectly discriminates the other if a criterion, provision, or practice, which is discriminatory, is applied concerning a specific protected characteristic of the individual. The discriminating criterion applies either when the respondent does not share the feature when the criterion is applied at a disadvantage of persons who lack the characteristic or when the criterion is not an approach of achieving a legitimate aim. For example, a requirement for job applicants to have more experience may disadvantage younger individuals. Similarly, a job advertisement that requires height specification of six feet discriminates against women since who are over six feet tall in comparison to men. Indirect discrimination claims are often based on legalities of the presented issue. The employer can discriminate indirectly if it is based on a legal reason. This is one of the many scenes where indirect discrimination is justified if it is considered as a proportionate way of attaining a legitimate objective.
Lastly, victimization refers to a form of discrimination whereby an individual is victimized as a result of an existing or previous participation in a complaint against the employer. On the other hand, under section 26 of the equity act, Harassment is defined as indulgence in undesired behavior related to a protected characteristic with the aim of violating the dignity of an individual. It involves the creation of a humiliating, hostile, intimidating and degrading work environment for an individual.A claim of victimization may be dismissed in a tribunal case if it can be proven that the accuser made false accusation out of malice or bad faith.
Employment Act 1996
The Employment Act of 1996 is another stature that forms the legal framework for employment dispute and conflict resolution. The statement contains various aspects of the employee, the employer, and employment contract. The include names, the period of contract of employment, dates, scale, intervals, and method of enumeration, terms, and conditions on working hours, holiday entitlement terms, pension schemes, notices, job description, terms of employment (temporal or permanent), Place of work and other terms.
The stature Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996), under section 95(1)(c) defines wrongful dismissal as a termination of the employment contract by the employee due to the employers conduct without any notice. It is a breach of the terms of the contract between the employer and the employee. It involves payment of the damages caused by the employer and does not require any notice (ERA 1996). On the other hand, unfair dismissal refers to a breach of contract by the employer due to unfair reasons that exclude the question of conduct, capacity and breach of duty (Hills, 1996). In conflict resolution, these cases are often restrained due to time factors and lack of definite reason. In most cases, employees are required to have a minimum of two years’ service in the respective organization in order to be legible in submitting an unfair dismissal claim. However, in other cases, service time constraint is usually a non-factor. According to the ACAS early conciliation, the claim of unfair dismissal has to be presented during the three month period from the effective termination date (EDT) (section 111(2), ERA 1996). The legibility of reason is often determined through a test about the substantial merits and equity of the case (Cooke 2001). The fairness of the procedure is to be carried out following the ACAS code of poor performance and misconduct dismissals 9 (Nairns 2012).
Discussion
a) Claim Harassment by Ade under Equity Act 10
The claim of harassment by Ade at her workplace qualifies to be discrimination, and it is unlawful. She was attacked verbally by her colleagues, Rory and Phil. They regularly tease Ade about her age and even stated that she should be cooking for her grandchildren and taking care of her husband at home. The conduct of the two is pervasive enough to make Ade feels like the workplace has become hostile, intimidating, and abusive. The laws dealing with the cases of harassment at workplace are specified under the Equity Act 10. However, before making any effort to solve the claim legally, it is imperative that the parties involved make an effort of solving the problem internally (Turnbull 2011). For instance, Ade may take the first step of reaching out directly to Rory and Phil. By doing so, she will take the chance of describing her feelings and request them to stop the bad behaviors they have shown to her (Dolvik & Martin 2014). Alternatively, Ade can take the option of contacting the supervisor of their department even if she is holding a senior position at the organization. This will be helpful, more so when Ade is uncomfortable in confronting Rory and Phil.
b) Claim of Suzy concerning reporting ISIS beheading videos
‘Employee voice.’
Employee voice is defined as the ability of employees to show their opinions, views, concerns, and suggestions, which in turn influence decisions at work. It is the right of employees to be part and parcel of issues contributing to decision-making processes (Mawrey & Riley-Smith 2012). Moreover, employee voice is also one of the four ‘enablers’ of employee engagement in their influential report on the subject. They defined voice as follows: “Employees’ views are sought out; they are listened to and see that their opinions count and make a difference. They speak out and challenge when appropriate. Thus, creating a strong sense of listening and responsiveness as required by many organizations (Hunt 2005). According to the recent research study on social media and voice, conceptualizations and practices of voice are not static but instead “evolve alongside technological and cultural developments.” “Voice is not just about providing the opportunity to have a say, but also about encouraging participation using the insight obtained and about providing genuine transparency.” (Hepple 2014).
c) Sex discrimination claim by Farzana
For proving that there is the existence of direct discrimination, an individual has to show that he or she has been treated less favorably because of their sex. This means that the individual has been disadvantaged in some way because of being female or male. This is often referred to as the ‘butfor’ test. Would the individual have been treated less favorably ‘but for’ their gender? Regarding Igen Ltd & Ors v Wong case (2005), it was held that if an individual can show that there was a difference in treatment between them and an actual or hypothetical comparator. It was also proven that their employer was unable to give an adequate reason for that particular difference. It was not based on gender, and thus the tribunal must uphold the issues raised by the complainant. An employer would have to provide an adequate explanation to prove that the person’s sex was not the reason why they were treated differently (Peart & Wallace 2014). The same situation was also experienced in the case involving Madarassy versus Nomura International plc.
Also, the case involving Stewart versus Cleveland Guest (Engineering) Ltd (1994), the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that there had been no discrimination when nude female pin-ups were displayed in a factory. Even though her employers knew that she found such material offensive, Ms. Stewart had not been treated any less favorably. The entire workforce could see the pictures. According to the British Telecom plc v Roberts’s case (1996), it was held that there had been no discrimination when a woman returning from maternity leave was told that she could not return to her job on a job share basis. She had not been treated any less favorably than a man subjected to the same incident had (Monaghan 2013). The employer refused the promotion request on the basis that the job needed to be done by a full-time employee and not because she was a woman.
With the case of Farzana, there are two issues involved indirect discrimination and sex discrimination as described in the Equality Act 2010 (Selmi, 2013). By being employed at Telenet as a graduate trainee, Farzana deserves promotion based on the employment policy of the same organization. She deserves to become a senior executive officer at Telenet after working under the graduate recruitment program for some years. The policy for promotion is also clear that a graduate is eligible for promotion if she or he has the age between 25 and 30 (Mead 2010). This is criteria that Farzana met because she was recruited to the program, with the aim of promoting her to the next level. In that case, the promotion dismissal of Farzana was based on sex discrimination and not failure to meet the threshold for determining graduates’ promotions.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In conclusion, the scope of discrimination as described by the Equality Act 2010 is very wide. The scope described under this act include direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, combined discrimination, and the protected characteristics. Equality Act 2010 has proven to be very important because, under the act, various groups such as employees, officeholders, contract workers, and other entities are protected. Moreover, protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 include age, disability, race, sex, sexual orientation religion, and gender reassignment. In that case, the claims raised by Ade, Suzy, and Farzana meet the protections provided by Equality Act 2010.
When it comes to organizational practice, it is essential that organizations follow the rules and processes described by the employment tribunal. This is helpful because it will prevent employers from subjecting their employees to any act of discrimination. Regarding the case of Farzana, it is imperative that Telenet to have considered the global employment trends regarding young men and women. These trends illustrate how progress and updates are made about the youth labour market. Moreover, youths possess the current technological skills, which have become the primary requirements in the employment market (United Kingdom 2012). Incorporating youths in the workforce of an organization is the first step for future investment (Harvey 2001). Furthermore, youths are the drivers of the global market. Therefore, organization practice should not encourage discrimination of youths by any form, including sex discrimination, direct discrimination, or indirect discrimination (Wadham et al 2016). Additionally, the organizational practice should also respect the voice of the employees. They have the right to express their concerns, views, opinions, and suggestion at the workplace. In many occasions, the concerns and suggestions made by employees have managed to influence the market performance of several organizations. For that reason, employees should not be subjected to discrimination, but be included in the decision-making process of the organization.
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