Equal opportunities

During this assignment will define what the equality act 2010 is, it will also explain what lead to the Act becoming law and who is protected under it. It will then explain what steps need to be taken to take an employer to a tribunal if discrimination has occurred, analysing four case studies and explain the key points, drawback and out-comes of the cases.

After World War two the United Nations (UN) were created the reason for this was: ‘To make the enforcement of international law, security, economic development, social progress, and human rights easier for countries around the world’ http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/unitednations.htm In 1948 the Human rights declaration was produced by the UN general assembly it was introduced to prevent the cruelties that had taken place during the War from happening again and if they did the UN would be able to intervene. Introducing the Human rights Act gave each individual basic right’s, with the hopes that everyone would be treated equally regardless of their gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or language. (These are all known as personal characteristics)
Over time as Britain developed human rights became law, in the 1970s the Equal pay Act (1970), Sex discrimination Act (1975), and Race relations Act (1976) were introduced to tackle unfair discrimination during education and employment. In the following years many more anti-discriminatory acts were introduced:
· Disability Discrimination Act 1995
· Employment Equality (religion belief) Regulations 2003
· Employment Equality (sexual orientation) Regulations 2003
· Employment Equality (age) Regulations 2006
· The Equality Act (sexual orientation) Regulations 2007
· Sex Discrimination Act 2008

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/advice/practice-notes/equality-act-2010/

Due to this in 2010 the Equality Act was brought in.

The equality act 2010 is a new legislation that covers all previous acts and the new ones, not only does the Act protect people’s personal characteristics but it allows people to take action if they are made to feel intimidated, humiliated or harassed. This legislation has helped in making Britain less discriminatory however it still occurs regularly within our society, the gaps in equality have become smaller but statistics show that: on average women still earn 22.6% less per hour than men, disabled people are more than twice as likely to be out of work than non- disabled people, in 1997 if you were from an ethnic minority group you were 17.9% less likely to find work than a white person the difference to date is still 13%, one in five older people are unsuccessful when applying for motor insurance, travel insurance and car hire and six out of ten gay children experience homophobic bulling and many consider suicide, and the gap between the employment rate of disabled people and the overall employment rate has decreased from 34.5% to 26.3% since 1998. These statistics show that gaps are getting smaller but that discrimination is still within our society regardless of the protection from the Equality Act. www.nusconnect.org.uk/pageassets/campaigns/.../4.pdf Within a company it’s important that the legislations regarding the Equality at work act are adhered to, otherwise the person being discriminated against can take legal action. To take legal action against an employer there are certain steps that need to be followed for the case eligible. Firstly speak to the employer and make them aware of the problem, if nothing improves then raise a grievance making sure that all evidence is written down and dated (a grievance must be put in writing). If raising grievance doesn’t work then the next step is to take the employer to a tribunal. This process has to be done within a time limit of just less than three months. Below are case studies these are people that have taken their employers to a tribunal, they will give examples of the different types of