The law on third-party harassment

Specific provisions to protect workers from harassment by third parties such as suppliers and customers did exist under section 40 of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010) but these were repealed on 1 October 2013 by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. The legislation was aimed, in particular, at protecting front-line staff such as care workers, teachers and nurses from abuse, and its repeal was strongly resisted by unions and other equality campaigners.

Despite the repeal, there may be other ways of enforcing a right to protection against third party harassment, such as by arguing that the employer’s failure to protect the worker is a breach of the general anti-harassment duty under section 26 of the EA 2010. For more information, see LRD’s annual employment law guide Law at Work.

The courts have identified the implementation of certain procedures as being reasonable to prevent third party harassment. Based on this the general union Unite advises its reps to:

• negotiate a workplace policy on harassment that includes steps to deal with third party harassment;

• notify third parties of the policy on harassment;

• Include terms in contracts with third parties;

• encourage reporting of incidents of third party harassment; and

• include third party harassment in workplace complaints procedures.