Employment law: The Equality Bill

After years of haggling the Equality Bill was nodded quickly through to Royal Assent this week – just before parliament dissolved for the election.

When the new Equality Act, as it now is, is implemented in October, nine major pieces of legislation and about 100 minor measures will disappear into one large Act. None of the main parties have said they will do much to change the new Act if they win the election, so it is time for employers to start getting their heads round it now.

Many employers will have to rewrite employment contracts   to take out any gagging clauses which prevent staff from discussing their salaries with each other. These clauses are outlawed by the Act. If this is going to cause embarrassment because secrecy clauses have been used to disguise favouritism and discrimination – then it is time to start thinking about  drawing up a transparent pay policy. This can be used to mollify staff who howl with outrage when they discover that,   just as they always suspected,   Jenkins gets paid more.  The policy can also be used when the government starts leaning on companies to prove their pay does not discriminate against women.  The Act paves the way for forcing companies to carry out gender pay audits.

Now the Act is here, it is also a good idea to compose a staff handbook to sit alongside the contracts. These can be updated and changed and unlike employment contracts the changes do not require the agreement of staff. Asda recently won a case against thousands of staff and forced them on to new terms and conditions without their agreement. Its handbook contained the clause “The Company reserves the right to review, revise, amend or replace the content of this handbook, and introduce new policies from time to time to reflect the changing needs of the business.” The handbook also said that some sections of the handbook relating to pay and conditions and Asda’s right to unilaterally change terms, was part of the staff’s employment contracts.

Of course handbooks can also provide useful evidence of non discriminatory policies at Tribunal for companies that face claims under the new Act. In many respects old non discriminatory policies can be dusted off as the same people qualify for protection from discrimination as before. But there are some differences and the Act codifies recent case law. For example, employers now have to ensure they do not discriminate against staff who are associated with someone who is protected from discrimination. For instance, it will count as discrimination if they punish an employee who takes time off to care for a disabled relative.

Handbooks and written anti discrimination codes will also prove useful for companies that bid for contracts from the public sector. The Equality Bill imposes a duty on public sector bodies to hold their suppliers to account for diversity policies. It will be essential to have a written policy and to have thought through how it will work before launching a bid.

Peta Fluendy is employment law consultant at Sutton based De Brett and Co
http://www.debrettlaw.co.uk/
employmentlawconsultant@gmx.com

Tags: employment law, Equality Act, Peta Fluendy

Posted by Peta Fluendy on Sunday, April 18th, 2010 at 9:00 am.

Filed under Ask an Expert, Careers, Equality, Tagged as: , employment law, Equality Act, Peta Fluendy.