The UK government is supporting a private member’s bill to bring back employers’ liability for harassment of employees by third parties at work, as well as introduce a new duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment.
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill would amend the provisions in the 2010 Equality Act 2010 to better protect employees from workplace harassment and sexual harassment, shifting the focus from ‘redress’ to ‘prevention’. Although introduced by Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, the bill received government support during its second reading in parliament last month, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of the #MeToo movement going viral on social media.
The most significant changes proposed by the bill include imposing a new positive duty on employers to “take all reasonable steps” to prevent their employees experiencing workplace sexual harassment. An employment tribunal would also be given the power to apply an uplift of up to 25% on tribunal awards where the duty to prevent harassment had not been complied with.
The bill would also make employers potentially liable for the harassment of staff by third parties, such as clients or customers, if they have failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent such harassment. These protections would apply to all acts of third party harassment in the workplace, for example racial as well as sexual harassment. The previous third party liability provisions in the Equality Act were repealed in...
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