What is the Equality Act 2010?
As per the Equality Act 2010, it is against the law for employers to differentiate against an individual due to his disability. Every individual or employee is equal in an industry and therefore, no one should be discriminated based on their disability. An employer who is recruiting might question the employee’s health and check whether he is disable or not. An employee cannot be chosen for redundancy only because he or she is disabled. This Act also states that an employee cannot be forced by the employer to quit or retire because of its disability (Wallace Nazroo and Bécares 2016). It has been observed in the United Kingdom that the disabled employees of United Kingdom earn on average two-thirds of the wages of non-disabled employees and are therefore associated with more manual and unskilled occupations as compared to the non-disabled employees. The Convention on Rights of Persons with disabilities and its protocol are applied on the disabled employees of United Kingdom.
The approach of disability grants access to the full protection of discrimination in disability law but only to those individuals who are classified as being disabled. The focus of discrimination proceedings should instead be the conduct of the alleged discriminator. According to the Equality Act, 2010 under part 2, section 6 has defined disability as an individual having mental or physical impairment (Barnes 2014). This particular act is applicable in relation to a person who has the disability since it is in relation to a person who has the disability. As per section 20 of the act, an individual has a duty to make reasonable adjustments. A physical characteristic puts a disabled person at a disadvantage in relation to a significant matter as compared to the persons who are not disabled. In relation to this, disabled and non-disabled persons, employees are also discriminated based on sex and employment. Discrimination of disability are considered to be more complex and sensitive. They are rooted from the basic rationale (Neumark, McLaughlin and Button 2015).
When the matter of age discrimination is concerned, the regulations might not work from premises. The existing legislation focuses on the issues of employment that determines in removing age discrimination. Therefore, if an individual fails to comply with the duties, he or she needs to make reasonable adjustments (Sargeant 2016). According to the regulations of the Equality Act, 2010 as per section 22 the matters must be taken into consideration in deciding whether it will be reasonable for that person to take a step for the purposes of the prescribed provision of the applicable schedule. However, differentiating employees based on their ability and disability is an offence as per the Equality Act. In an industry or an organization, individuals should not be rejected because of their disability. Such activities are treated to be as an unfair offence in industries (Wallace Nazroo and Bécares 2016). Discrimination arises from disability and it consists of unjustified less favorable treatment for a reason that are related to the disabled person’s disability. In the matter of Lewisham LBC v Malcolm, it was observed that Novacold had overturned and the comparator requirement was interpreted with the same level of strictness as it is in the cases of direct discrimination. The less favourable treatment determined that the claimant was not treated favourably as compared to a similar situated non-disabled person (Pearson and Trevisan 2015). However, this kind of approach decreased the disability that is related to discrimination that formed a justifiable direct discrimination and had an effective deathblow. It has been noticed in the case of Grieg v Community Industry (1979). Section 15 of the Equality Act, 2010, there have been a defence justification for discrimination that arose from the disability into line with the justification defence for an indirect discrimination as observed in the case of Hardys & Hanson PLC v Lax (2005). Disability remains the only protected feature in respect to which a reasonable adjustment duty operates a limitation that is to be found at the level of international law (Pearson and Trevisan 2015). When employees are asked about their health during the time of recruitment, the Equality Act had introduced a new restriction under section 60 that are subjected to a few exceptions. If this section is applied, the employers get prevented from asking those questions related to health issues before coming to a conclusion of whether to employ them or not. Health is a term that is used widely than disability. Therefore, it can be stated clearly that the proceedings of claimant and disability discrimination refers to the situation that an employer had asked a restricted question (Cotter 2018). However, the effectiveness of this section is highly dependent on the judicial interpretation of the functions intrinsic to the job exception and in its policing role (Lawson 2016).
Disability Discrimination
Discrimination can be both direct and indirect. Direct discrimination is ruled under section 13 of the Equality Act, 2010. This section applies in all the spheres of protecting the features. The existence of discrimination that arises from disability has its general defence of justification (Karlsen and Nazroo 2014). It ignores the difficulties by restricting less favourable treatment due to a protected feature. It produces a clear picture of direct discrimination claims that are brought by individuals who are disabled and are therefore treated less favourably. This is because of who they get associated with. Section 19 of the Equality Act, 2010, it establishes indirect discrimination in relation to disability. Indirect discrimination provides remedy to individuals that wants to clear the barriers of indiscrimination disability (Baumgärtner et al. 2015). The nature of disability are diverse in nature when it comes to the theory of lending oneself easily to the concept of indirect discrimination (Santuzzi et al. 2014). In the United Kingdom, indirect discrimination has not been tested. Opportunities help to develop disability equality law that the act has seized the changes of the substantive nature. The purpose and need to prevent discrimination is the a part of the wide range of obligations that was imposed on the country. Discrimination can again be classified into associative and perceptive (Degener 2016). Associative discrimination arises when a less favourable treatment is afforded to an individual due to someone else’s protected characteristic. This was observed in the case of Coleman v Attridge Law. The judgment of this case stated that Coleman was subjected to less favourable treatment because she had a disabled son. This was an unfair decision that was taken on Coleman as she was discriminated from everyone only because her son was disabled (Neumark, Song and Button 2017). However, disability is not the only sphere when individuals are discriminated. People are discriminated based on their age, sex, pregnancy, race and religion. Millar v Inland Revenue Commissioners [2006] showed that it prohibited the day to day activities even though there was no specific illness. The opposite party proved no mental or physical disability. Therefore, unfair acts should be taken lightly (Pearson and Trevisan 2015). In such a situation, the Equality Act should be referred. When it comes to the age discrimination regulations, there have been arguments and considerations that have informed the judgment of human rights. As per the European Law, the language of the regulations is not diminished from the concepts that are habitually relied on by the ECJ at the time of considering the issues of objective justification (Baumgärtner et al. 2015). The provisions of the Age Discrimination Act and Sex Discrimination Act does not work from a premise that get less favorable treatment on the basis and grounds of age that must be lawful. These regulations should entail an employer to convince a tribunal at first (Cotter 2018). However, the approach that is proposed is not that different from the approach that is taken into justification (Act 2010). The purpose of it lies in the Disability Discrimination Act. Thereafter, there are reasonable adjustments of the disability discrimination as per the Equality Act, 2010. As observed, there are legal risks for employers that arise from the mental illness in their workplace. Injuries that are personal claims arose where stressful working conditions foreseeably caused psychiatric injury routinely yield compensation payments of six figures or more (Neumark, McLaughlin and Button 2015). Maximum number of jobs, particularly the ones carrying high pay or status are inherently stressful. Employers that seek to decrease their personal injury risks by removing vulnerable people from those jobs risk getting smacked on the other side of the face by the disability discrimination legislation, under which compensation payments can reach similar levels. The greatest mental health reaches the crisis point in individuals that causes risk more than legal claims. Greatest mental health costs a lot in to the employers of United Kingdom. Therefore, due to the mental illness, employees are discriminated in industries and organizations, which is generally unfair as per the Equality Act (Wallace Nazroo and Bécares 2016). The medical and creative sector goes through similar kind of issues. Mental illness is something that should be checked but an employer cannot terminate the course of an employee immediately if he finds out that he is mentally ill. Disable employees are vulnerable and should be treated with utmost care and not discriminated (Neumark, Song and Button 2017). Confidential counselling can also be arranged for disabled employees for understanding their mental condition and what they are going through (Neumark, McLaughlin and Button 2015). Employers should take into account the particular pressure points for the individuals in their organizations. This includes variety of work, peer pressure, involvement in the process of decision making, intensity and team dynamics (Lawson 2016).
Age Discrimination
Disabled employees face such harassment in the organization by their co-employees and employers. They can opt for preventing harassment in such situation by applying Section 26 and 40 of the Equality Act, 2010. Whether sex discrimination or disability discrimination, an employee can refer to this Act for defending themselves and gaining protection. The scope of protection is provided by the DDA provision that has turned two fundamentally important issues. It included the degree of knowledge of the complainant’s disability, as it was required on the part of the employer. The second issue was that there was an appropriate comparator while establishing whether they have been treated less favourably. Pregnancy discrimination is also known as an indirect discrimination. Webb v EMO Air Cargo (UK) Ltd discussed how pregnant women are discriminated because they are carrying child in their womb. They are mainly discriminated at workplaces (Bhui et al. 2015). When an individual claims direct discrimination, they compare their treatment with that received by another person and argue that the difference in treatment would not have occurred but for a particular difference between them and the other person which is a prohibited ground.
It is important to recognise what the but-for approach of the courts amounts to, but also what it does not. It is not a correct application of the test to conclude that, as discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy can only happen to a woman, it follows that discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy is therefore sex discrimination, whether direct or indirect (Lawson 2016). However, it is important to note that disability discrimination is an offence and should not be caused to employees of an organization as it unfair on their part. Every employee of an industry should refer to the Equality Act, 2010 while defending the activities they are going through. The concept of discrimination is meaningless without an constituent of comparison. It is part of what is involved in discriminating that different treatment has been made between different parts and circumstances people and that cannot occur without an element of comparison. To attempt to abandon this is to do violence to the concept of discrimination. Justified discrimination cannot rest based on the protection of anti-discrimination. Thus, disability discrimination is majorly experienced in the states of United Kingdom, therefore employees or individuals should not be discriminated, and no partiality should be done among people working in an organization. Every individual should be treated equally in every situation.
References:
Act, E., 2010. Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act.
Barnes, C., 2014. Independent living, politics and policy in the United Kingdom: A social model account. Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal, 1(4).
Baumgärtner, M.K., Dwertmann, D.J., Boehm, S.A. and Bruch, H., 2015. Job satisfaction of employees with disabilities: The role of perceived structural flexibility. Human Resource Management, 54(2), pp.323-343.
Bhui, K., Stansfeld, S., McKenzie, K., Karlsen, S., Nazroo, J. and Weich, S., 2015. Racial/ethnic discrimination and common mental disorders among workers: findings from the EMPIRIC Study of Ethnic Minority Groups in the United Kingdom. American journal of public health, 95(3), pp.496-501.
Cotter, A.M.M., 2018. This Ability: An International Legal Analysis of Disability Discrimination. Routledge.
Degener, T., 2016. Intersections between disability, race and gender in discrimination law. In European Union non-discrimination law and intersectionality (pp. 39-56). Routledge.
Lawson, A., 2016. European Union non-discrimination law and intersectionality: investigating the triangle of racial, gender and disability discrimination. Routledge.
Lindsay, S., McDougall, C., Menna-Dack, D., Sanford, R. and Adams, T., 2015. An ecological approach to understanding barriers to employment for youth with disabilities compared to their typically developing peers: views of youth, employers, and job counselors. Disability and rehabilitation, 37(8), pp.701-711.
Neumark, D., McLaughlin, J.S. and Button, P., 2015. Does Protecting Older Workers from Discrimination Make It Harder to Get Hired? Revised with Additional Analysis of SIPP Data and Appendix of Disability Laws.
Neumark, D., Song, J. and Button, P., 2017. Does protecting older workers from discrimination make it harder to get hired? Evidence from disability discrimination laws. Research on aging, 39(1), pp.29-63.
Pearson, C. and Trevisan, F., 2015. Disability activism in the new media ecology: Campaigning strategies in the digital era. Disability & Society, 30(6), pp.924-940.
Santuzzi, A.M., Waltz, P.R., Finkelstein, L.M. and Rupp, D.E., 2014. Invisible disabilities: Unique challenges for employees and organizations. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 7(2), pp.204-219.
Sargeant, M., 2016. Age discrimination in employment. Routledge.
Wallace, S., Nazroo, J. and Bécares, L., 2016. Cumulative effect of racial discrimination on the mental health of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. American journal of public health, 106(7), pp.1294-1300.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
