The Worker Protection Bill
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill is a private member's bill that received Royal Assent 26th October 2023 and will come into force in October 2024. Its purpose is to amend the Equality Act 2010 to make employers liable for harassment of their employees by third parties, such as customers or clients, and to introduce a specific duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of their employees.
This bill is significant because it places the responsibility on employers to ensure their employees are protected from harassment. It recognises that sexual harassment and other forms of harassment in the workplace are unacceptable and that employers have a duty of care towards their employees.
For employers, this means they will need to review their policies and procedures to ensure that they are taking all reasonable steps to prevent harassment. This may involve providing training to employees around identification and reporting harassment in customer, supplier and client-facing and/or virtual settings. Existing incident management and reporting mechanisms may need development to cover the management of incidents between employees across more than one organisation, for example, in supply and supplier relationship scenarios. For employers whose customers are members of the public, open and fair harassment policies will need to be established and communicated with their customers and staff alongside suitable complaints mechanisms that safeguard members of the public from unfair harassment claims.
For employees, this bill provides much-needed, reinforcement to existing protection from harassment in the workplace. It gives them the confidence to report any incidents of harassment regardless of the source by representing the broader context and forms for how harassment can take place at work.
Overall, The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill is a positive step towards creating a safe and fair workplace for all employees. It is important that employers take this bill seriously and take all necessary steps to ensure that their employees are protected from harassment.
