What Is Discrimination?
Discrimination is when a person is treated less favourably than another in the workplace by your Employer or other Employees, based on your traits or characteristics.
You can be discriminated against for several reasons:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage or civil partnership
- pregnancy or maternity
- race (including colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin)
- religion or belief
- sex / sexual orientation
The Equality Act 2010 (TEA 2010) prohibits discrimination for any of these reasons
Direct and Indirect Discrimination
You can be discriminated against in two ways: directly or indirectly.
You are discriminated against directly when someone treats you differently based on the traits listed above. You may recognise this type of discrimination because someone asks you the colour of your skin, your religion, your sexual orientation, your marital status, or your gender before applying for a position.
Alternately, an Employer may directly specify in its company or business’s job advert that a homosexual, married or female person is not welcome in the Company.
You are discriminated against indirectly when the Company you work for or would like to work for requires specific arrangements or policies that restrict the employment of a person with any of the above traits. For instance, a company may advertise that only people who are born and raised in the UK can apply for their position. By doing this, the Employer may indirectly discriminate against anyone born outside the UK.
Some companies may be able to justify a reason for discrimination, however, it is implied, not stated. In effect the criteria for the job would not make it a suitable job for the applicant, for instance:
- Manager – minimum 5 years experience – anyone aged 18-23 would not have such experience
- Finance Manager – a job that required a high level of concentration would not be suitable for someone with severe learning disabilities.
- Librarian – may not be suitable for somebody who is blind
- Vicar / Iman etc – this would be faith specific
- Carer for elderly female – the employer could ask for female only staff as the lady would feel uncomfortable with a gentleman carer
I am sure we have all looked at jobs we would like and are saddened that we do not meet the criteria, however, provided that criteria are fair then there is no legal argument.
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