The Underworld garment factory in TV soap Coronation Street has never been known as the home of harmonious industrial relations.
When a cantankerous machinist threatened to take the then-boss Mike Baldwin to an employment tribunal for insisting that she work overtime to get out a last-minute order, he told her menacingly: “I have a terrible memory – I never forget a thing.”
This piece of bravado could easily have landed the roguish Mike on the wrong side of legislation that protects employees against victimisation by their boss.
Under these rules, employers are forbidden to treat an employee who brings or takes action over a discrimination, harassment or equal-pay claim less favourably than his or her colleagues.
The rules are intended to make sure that employees are not deterred from bringing a claim, or helping others to do so, for fear of reprisals. They apply to the various discrimination laws on sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
Employees can claim to have been victimised if they are treated less favourably than their colleagues for:
Bosses are also guilty of victimisation for handing out less favourable treatment to anyone they suspect of merely intending to do any of these things.
The law does not, however, apply to treatment of employees “by reason of any allegation that was false and not made in good faith”.
A person can still claim victimisation even after moving to work for someone else. This would happen, for example, if a former employer refused to give a reference to an ex-employee who had previously brought a case against the firm.
Now can you imagine what Mike Baldwin would have made of that?
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muhammed.shaikh@pearson-hinchliffe.co.uk
Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law is a commercial law practice providing a range of legal service to business and commercial clients in Oldham and across the North West. The firm's specialities include Company & Commercial, Employment Law, Commercial Litigation and Commercial Property matters.
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