What's discrimination?

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Being treated worse than others because of who you are

Discrimination is where you're treated worse than other people because of who you are. See Oskar and Sharon's stories.

Man with carrots Oskar’s story
For the last couple of summers, I have moved from Poland to East Anglia to get work picking crops. Some of the local people are very nice to us.But some do not like us being here. There is only one shop in the village we stay in but when I first moved here I could not go there. The owner refused to serve any Polish people. So I had to go into the town. But, my friend, he told me that this was illegal. So I went in and complained. Now I can go into the shop whenever I want. But I prefer to spend my money somewhere else.

Carer Sharon's story
Every year, my employer pays to put one member of staff through training to become a qualified carer. I applied this year but the place went to a guy in my team. when I raised it with my boss, he said the past two candidates were women so it was time to give the men a turn. I plucked up the courage to complain and it went all the way up to the assistant director. they offered me an apology and said I would be considered for the next place that came up.

Being harassed
If someone is saying or doing things because of who you are that you find offensive, humiliating, frightening or distressing, that is also discrimination. It is called harassment.

Jan's story
When I told my boss that I was going to have gender reassignment surgery I expected him to keep it confidential. But over the next few weeks I was subjected to endless taunts and nasty practical jokes from colleagues - from being called a ‘lady boy’ to finding bras and tampons hung up around my office.

Your employer must take reasonable steps to protect you from harassment in the workplace not only from work colleagues and managers but also from other people you come into contact with in the course of your work, such as customers.

Unnecessary rules and ways of doing things that put you at a disadvantage
Discrimination can be subtler than being treated worse than others or being harassed. Someone may have a rule or a way of doing things that they apply to everyone in the same way. But if it puts you, and other people like you, at a disadvantage compared with others, this could also be discrimination. It is called indirect discrimination.

For example, some employers choose staff for redundancy on the basis that the last one in should be the first one out. This could be indirect age discrimination because younger employees may have been recruited more recently than older members of staff.

It also used to be common for insurance companies to require customers to declare whether they’d had an HIV test and refuse to sell policies to those who had. This could be indirect sexual orientation discrimination because it is arguable that gay men are more likely to have been tested than straight men.

Behaviour like this won’t always be discrimination, though. Provided the purpose of the rule or way of doing things isn’t to discriminate against you, they might be able to justify their behaviour as a necessary means to an end.

Being punished for complaining about discrimination
If you are treated less favourably for complaining about being discriminated against or helping someone else to complain about being discriminated against, that is also against the law. It is called victimisation.

Not having 'reasonable adjustments' made for you if you are disabled
If you’re disabled, there’s another way you might be discriminated against.

Someone might have a rule or ways of doing things that puts you at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled.
You might have a difficulty getting in or around their premises compared with people who are not disabled.
Without specialist equipment or support it might be harder for you to do your job than colleagues who are not disabled.

If the person responsible doesn't take reasonable steps to prevent or reduce that disadvantage, that is discrimination. For example:

An employer wants to carry out telephone interviews with the job applicants he has selected. One of them is deaf. The deaf man asks to have a face-to-face interview instead.

The only access to the toilets at a local pub is through a doorway that it is too narrow for a disabled customer in a wheelchair to get through. He points this out to the pub landlord and asks him to see if he can widen the doorway.

Being treated unfairly because of something to do with your disability - New rights from October 2010!
Gita has cancer. Her employer sacks her - not because she has cancer, but because of all the time she has had off work because of it. Unless her employer can show that this is the reasonable way of dealing with the effect her time off is having on his business, this is likely to be discrimination.