The Employment Equality Acts apply to lots of different areas of working life, including hiring, recruitment, promotion, equal pay, working conditions, workplace training, dismissal, and harassment in the workplace.
This law applies to work experience and vocational training, but does not cover volunteering.
This law also covers harassment in the workplace that relates to one of the nine protected grounds – including sexual orientation and gender. The gender ground covers gender identity and expression, including trans and non-binary people.
Harassment is any form of unwanted conduct which violates a person’s dignity and creates an intimidating, humiliating or offensive environment. The type of behaviour that can be considered harassment includes things that are said, written or photographed.
What does this law look like in practice?
In 2023, a gay woman took a case against her employer for being effectively outed at work. The woman was repeatedly asked by colleagues about her boyfriend and being interested in men, and eventually felt forced to say that she has no interest in men. The Workplace Relations Commission found that the worker had experienced harassment in the workplace on the basis of her sexual orientation.
If you think you have experienced discrimination under the Employment Equality Acts, you can make a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission – more information about this can be found here.