Who is protected by the Equality Act 2010




Part V of the EA 10 (“Work”) prohibits discrimination against:


• all employees, job applicants and former employees;




• contract workers, agency workers, sub-contract workers, temps, casual workers, zero hours contract workers, apprentices, people on vocational training, work placements or work experience;




• many freelancers;



• police officers;




• partners; 




• barristers; 




• office holders; and




• members of a limited liability partnership.




“Employment” is defined in section 83(2)(a), EA 10 as “employment under a contract of employment, a contract of apprenticeship or a contract personally to do work”. To be protected, there must be a contract to work personally. In other words, the individual must be a “worker” (see Chapter 2, page 34). 


A temporary agency worker can claim against both the agency and the hirer, provided there is a contract to work personally (London Borough of Camden v (1) Pegg (2) Randstad Care Limited (3) Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited [2012] UKEAT/0590/11/LA). 


Someone who contracts via a personal service company (PSC) or umbrella company (see Chapter 2) cannot normally bring a claim for discrimination under the EA 10 against the hirer of their services, because there is no “contract personally to do work”, since the contract is with the PSC (Halawi v WDFG UK Limited [2014] EWCA Civ.1387). (For an unusual example when a different result was reached, see EAD Solicitors LLP v Abrams [2015] UKEAT/0054/15/DM). 



The genuinely self-employed — those who are freely in business in their own right marketing their services to the world at large, independently and at arms-length — cannot claim under the “work” provisions of the EA 10. See Chapter 2: Self-employment.