This is our selection of recent developments which we think will impact on HR practice.
Recent press reports cast doubt on whether proposed new laws on third party harassment and new duty to prevent sexual harassment will go ahead.
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill, which has been working its way through Parliament, is designed to encourage employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace by introducing a new duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees in the course of their employment.
This is a private member’s bill with government backing so it had widely been expected to become law, particularly given the government’s long-standing desire to toughen up sexual harassment laws. But on 21 April more than 40 amendments were added by Tory backbench peers in the House of Lords leading to fears that this could lead to the bill falling at the end of this Parliamentary session due to lack of Parliamentary time. The proposed third-party harassment provisions have been criticised as striking the wrong balance between protecting free speech and tackling harassment. The bill builds in a type of ‘carve out’ provision to ensure that, while employers will be expected to take action against workplace harassment, those actions should not extend to prohibiting the conversation of others, subject to certain limitations. So, an employer would still be expected to take...
Three Houston-area individuals accused of belonging to a sovereign-citizen group have been indicted in federal court on charges of falsely claiming to be diplomats of the “Moroccan Empire,” accord...