Small-boat migrants working illegally in Britain may bring harassment claims against their employers under Labour’s strengthened workers’ rights laws, according to new guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
The guidance was issued after Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Act came into force on Friday. It sets out employers’ legal obligations to prevent sexual and other forms of harassment in the workplace.
Businesses must now take “all reasonable steps” to protect employees, rather than simply “reasonable steps”. The EHRC says an employment tribunal can hear a harassment claim even where the worker does not hold a valid work permit.
Its guidance gives the example of a migrant worker without permission to work in the UK who is harassed by a colleague. Although the employment contract would be illegal, the worker could still pursue a claim because the alleged harassment was not dependent on the legality of the job.
The EHRC says: “The fact that a contract of employment is illegal will not normally prevent a worker pursuing their harassment claim” under employment rights legislation.
Employers can also be held responsible when harassment is carried out by third parties, including customers, self-employed contractors or freelancers, if they have failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.
Companies found liable could face employment tribunals and uncapped compensation where harassment relates to protected characteristics including age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp criticised the changes, saying: “This is farcical. Labour should be stopping the boats and securing our borders. Instead, they are handing out even more rights to illegal immigrants.”
The guidance follows an employment tribunal case in which a Malaysian migrant without the legal right to work in the UK was awarded more than £5,000 in September.
Erin Ong, a hotel manager at the Fisherbeck Hotel in Ambleside, Cumbria, did not have a work permit. An employment judge nevertheless awarded compensation after finding that she had suffered discrimination relating to race, sex and disability.
The tribunal found that Ms Ong had been made to work in conditions that aggravated her asthma, required to show her passport and dismissed after refusing to move accommodation.
A Government spokesman said: “The changes introduced on Friday mean employers must take stronger action to make sure everyone can feel safe at work.”
