Angela Rayner is under pressure to introduce legal protections for staff expressing Right-wing views at work as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms. The Telegraph has the story.
Lord Young of Acton is to table a new amendment to Ms Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill addressing what he claimed was “a ‘two tier’ system in which, broadly speaking, Left-of-centre beliefs are protected by the Equality Act and Right-of-centre beliefs aren’t.”
The amendment will ban companies from punishing staff for discussing controversial political views at work, so long as they are legal.
The Free Speech Union, Lord Young’s campaign group, is currently aware of six cases involving Reform UK activists who have lost jobs because of their political views. Lord Young said there was “little rhyme or reason” as to which beliefs enjoy protected status and which do not.
Lord Young said: “For instance, anti-Zionism is a protected belief, but Zionism isn’t. A belief in Democratic Socialism is protected, but a belief in Conservatism isn’t.”
The amendment has the backing of Baroness Fox, an independent peer, and Lord Young is to canvas support in the coming weeks. If the amendment passes, it must still be approved by the Commons.
Under the Equalities Act, staff are protected from discrimination on the basis of political opinion or affiliation, but neither Left or Right-wing views are protected unless they are judged to be philosophical beliefs.
Last year a judge ruled that supporting Brexit, for example, did not amount to a protected political believe. The ruling came after Colette Fairbanks, a former Ukip councillor, was sacked by a charity for sharing “offensive” posts about immigrants on social media.
Ms Fairbanks took the charity to a tribunal, where she claimed she was “bullied and harassed” over her political views.
Dismissing her claim, employment judge Paul Jumble said: “There has to be a distinction between a philosophical belief and a strongly held opinion.
“If, for example, ‘wanting to leave the EU’ was held to be a philosophical belief then more than half the British electorate would have a belief that fell within [equality laws], which could not be the intention of the legislation.”
Lord Young said his amendment would mean that workers with differing views could argue more openly about politics at work.
“This amendment will mean employers cannot penalise their employees for expressing controversial political opinions in the workplace, provided those opinions are worthy of respect in a democratic society, not in conflict with the fundamental beliefs of others and not affiliated with a political party or organisation that’s proscribed by the Terrorism Act,” he said.
“The purpose of my amendment is to give all political beliefs the same protected status.”
Peers have been raising concerns about various parts of the Employment Rights Bill in recent weeks, with the House of Lords set to continue to examine individual parts of the legislation on Monday. The reforms will radically extend the powers of unions in the workplace and hand staff greater entitlement to sick pay and the ability to take employers to tribunal from day one on the job.
Lord Young has already added an amendment in the Bill opposing the Government’s plans for a so-called pub banter crackdown, which will force employers to protect staff from non-sexual, third-party harassment.
The rules effectively mean companies must stop staff from being offended at work and critics fear it will lead to “banter police” in pubs.
In a speech on Monday, Lord Young will argue: “This clause will plunge employers into a legal quagmire, force them to spend a fortune on obtaining and then implementing legal advice and will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech in those very places – pubs, bars, restaurants, football stadiums, universities – where people should be free to speak their minds.
“Who will bother to pop into their local for a drink if there are ‘banter bouncers’ in every beer garden, a ‘pronoun policy’ on every wall and the need to produce proof you’ve had DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] training before you can get served?”
Worth reading in full.
