Staff Given Extra Day's Annual Leave if they attended Xmas Party

ArbitraryRandom

I'm a little late to this (only just seen the thread due to my own Christmas activities) - but I'm going to disagree with some of the posters who are suggesting being unable to attend due to caring responsibilities is not a protected characteristic: 

If you're looking after someone who is elderly or disabled, the law will protect you against direct discrimination or harassment because of your caring responsibilities. This is because you're counted as being 'associated' with someone who is protected by the law because of their age or disability.

Link

Potentially, any event someone can't attend due to caring responsibilities for non-disabled children could also be indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex or family status (a single mother with young children may be able to argue she can't attend an evening/late event). Notwithstanding the potential claim from anyone on maternity leave/who would have problems attending the event due to disability or pregnancy... 

I can't see this applying in the case of the OP, but I'd certainly advise against it if I worked in this company's HR department I'd suggest it's really not worth the potential hassle. 

lincroft1710

ArbitraryRandom said:

I'm a little late to this (only just seen the thread due to my own Christmas activities) - but I'm going to disagree with some of the posters who are suggesting being unable to attend due to caring responsibilities is not a protected characteristic: 

If you're looking after someone who is elderly or disabled, the law will protect you against direct discrimination or harassment because of your caring responsibilities. This is because you're counted as being 'associated' with someone who is protected by the law because of their age or disability.

Link

Potentially, any event someone can't attend due to caring responsibilities for non-disabled children could also be indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex or family status (a single mother with young children may be able to argue she can't attend an evening/late event). Notwithstanding the potential claim from anyone on maternity leave/who would have problems attending the event due to disability or pregnancy... 

I can't see this applying in the case of the OP, but I'd certainly advise against it if I worked in this company's HR department I'd suggest it's really not worth the potential hassle. 

Interesting.

I may have missed it but looking at this

https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

doesn't appear to mention carers

ArbitraryRandom

lincroft1710 said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

I'm a little late to this (only just seen the thread due to my own Christmas activities) - but I'm going to disagree with some of the posters who are suggesting being unable to attend due to caring responsibilities is not a protected characteristic: 

If you're looking after someone who is elderly or disabled, the law will protect you against direct discrimination or harassment because of your caring responsibilities. This is because you're counted as being 'associated' with someone who is protected by the law because of their age or disability.

Link

Potentially, any event someone can't attend due to caring responsibilities for non-disabled children could also be indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex or family status (a single mother with young children may be able to argue she can't attend an evening/late event). Notwithstanding the potential claim from anyone on maternity leave/who would have problems attending the event due to disability or pregnancy... 

I can't see this applying in the case of the OP, but I'd certainly advise against it if I worked in this company's HR department I'd suggest it's really not worth the potential hassle. 

Interesting.

I may have missed it but looking at this

https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

doesn't appear to mention carers

If you look at the notes that were published alongside the Equality act, they specifically mention direct discrimination when someone is 'associated' with someone with a protected characteristic (point 59):

 
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true

Flippantly, I would suggest the reason they avoid mentioning it in the general guidance is because of how confusing it is given they also decided to use the work 'associations' at great length when talking about the duties on clubs/societies etc  

Edit: This seems to contain a case law examples illustrating how a similar situation was found to be discriminatory in practice (where the individual treated less favourably did not themselves have a protected characteristic): https://www.stammeringlaw.org.uk/coleman-v-attridge-law/

The EAT said the test was whether the claimant was treated less favourably by reason of the disability of another person (since the Equality Act we would say ‘because of’ the disability), or harrassed for a reason which relates to the disability of another person. Tribunals did not need to consider whether there was an ‘association’ between the claimant and the person with the disability. The EAT explained this by saying:

“16. I appreciate that my formulation does not use the language of “association”.  Although the phrase “associative discrimination” is a convenient shorthand, on my reading of the decision of the [EU] Court of Justice the concept of association is not central to its reasoning. What matters is that the putative victim has suffered adverse treatment on a proscribed “ground”, namely disability, and the fact that the disability is not his own is not of the essence: see para 50 of the judgment … In practice it may be uncommon for an employee to be discriminated against on the ground of the disability of anyone with whom he is not in some sense “associated”, indeed closely associated, but the fact of such association is not necessary to the unlawfulness; and I should prefer to avoid language which encourages tribunals to become bogged down in discussion of what does or does not amount to an “association”, when that should not be the focus of the inquiry.  (I should also note that I have used the phrase “by reason” that rather than “on the ground of” purely because it reads less clumsily: the two phrases are interchangeable in this field: see Nagarajan v London Regional Transport …)”
EBR Attridge Law v Coleman (bailii.org), EAT, 2009.

unforeseen

I love the way this has deviated away from the op's original question. Caring was never mentioned. The reason for non-attendance at the function was

. I was unable to attend due to already having plans in place for that evening way before the company Christmas party/outing was arranged

ArbitraryRandom

unforeseen said:

I love the way this has deviated away from the op's original question. Caring was never mentioned. The reason for non-attendance at the function was

. I was unable to attend due to already having plans in place for that evening way before the company Christmas party/outing was arranged

I acknowledged in my earlier post I didn't think this would relate to the OP's situation, but I thought it would be helpful to post as it seemed some were unaware that the individual does not need to have a protected characteristic to have a claim for unlawful discrimination under the EA... 

As I previously stated, there's a range of reasons why this policy seems at best 'unwise'.