Since the allegations of sexual harassment in the entertainment world came to light in October last year, the rise in allegations across all sectors of society and the momentum of the #MeToo movement have ensured that this topic continues to remain firmly in the media’s spotlight. However, a recent report from The Women and Equalities Committee suggests that the Government and employers have been slow to take steps to address this problem and have called for them to make tackling sexual harassment a priority.
In our blog in April, we set out the current protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. In this latest report, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, which follows a six month inquiry, there are calls for the legislation to go much further.
Women and Equalities Committee Report On Sexual Harassment
What are the limitations of the current legislation?
The report identified a number of reasons why the current legislation was not working or, at least, not working well enough:
- There is not an adequate incentive for employers to take sexual harassment seriously. The report refers to other areas, such as data protection and money laundering, where the possibility of punitive fines have encouraged employers to take active steps to comply.
- There is little in the way of mandatory actions, which employers are required to take to guard against sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers will have a defence to a claim against them for sexual harassment, where they are able to show that they took “all reasonable steps” to prevent the harassment.
- In the absence of any central enforcement agency assigned to deal with sexual harassment, responsibility for notifying allegations lies with the individual victim. If they chose not to come forward to make a complaint, perhaps because they feel too intimidated to do so, the harassment is likely to continue.
- The current legislation does not necessarily protect those classed as volunteers or interns.
- There was previously legislation in place which specifically protected workers against harassment from third parties. However, this was repealed on 1 October 2013. This has caused employer’s obligations in relation to third party harassment to become unclear.
What are the proposals to fix this?
The report made a number of recommendations as to how the situation can be improved:
- Making it a mandatory requirement for employers to protect employees from sexual harassment and extending this protection to volunteers and interns.
- Giving the Equality and Human Rights Commission responsibility for enforcing employer’s duties and imposing fines.
- Reintroducing the concept of third party harassment.
- Extending the time limit to bring a tribunal claim for sexual harassment from 3 months to 6 months.
- Requiring a guilty employer to pay an employee’s legal fees at the end of a claim.
- Limiting the extent to which an employee can be required to keep allegations confidential when signing settlement agreements.
A number of these proposed steps echo the recommendations of the Equality and Human Rights Commission from their report in March this year. With an increasing amount of pressure being put on the Government, not just from the committees that have reported back this year, but from the wider public interest which shows no sign of abating, it may only be a matter of time before we see new legislation to address sexual harassment in the workplace.
Those employers that are not currently taking active steps to address sexual harassment should act now to identify how improvements can be made. As a minimum we would recommend that you have in place polices which deal with bullying, harassment, equal opportunities and discrimination, that you train staff to understand their obligations and take appropriate action where policies are breached.
How Can Nelsons Help?
Laura Evans is a specialist Employment Law Solicitor at Nelsons.
For further information, please contact our employment law specialists on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.