AG TV: Advising on Gary's Unfair Dismissal Claim and Equality Act 2010

This essay examines the case of Gary, a presenter at AG TV, who was dismissed from his show due to declining popularity and revenue. The essay advises the Board of Directors of AG TV on the merits of Gary's unfair dismissal claim, considering the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Equality Act 2010. The analysis delves into the legal aspects of unfair dismissal, age discrimination, and the responsibilities of employers in the UK. The essay also provides a detailed overview of the Equality Act 2010, its provisions against discrimination, and its application in the workplace. It explores concepts such as direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation. The essay uses the case study to illustrate the practical implications of the Equality Act and the potential for discrimination claims, providing insights into the legal framework surrounding employment rights and fair treatment in the UK.

PROBLEM BASED ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction..........................................................................................................................................
Assessment 1 Case Study – All Generation TV...................................................................................
Advise the Board of Directors of AG TV on the merits of Gary’s unfair dismissal claim.........1
Assessment 2 Essay..............................................................................................................................
Equality Act 2010........................................................................................................................3
References............................................................................................................................................

INTRODUCTION
In the present research report, researcher focuses on understanding the core concepts of
different rights that an employee possess during his/her tenure. At times, unfair dismissal take
place which indeed create problems for the employee (Freyens and Oslington, 2013). In this
regard, government of UK have developed various laws and legislation on the basis of which
penalized employee through unfair practices can claims certain compensation. Herein,
considering the case of Gary who was working since 1981 with AG TV but as the presenter of
DIY Show. However, due to declining popularity of show produce planned to modify various
aspects about the show which consist of new anchor thus, Gary was terminated from the show. In
this context, present research focuses on advising the Board of Directors of AG TV on the merits
of Gary’s unfair dismissal claim. Wherein, second part essay on illustrating the provision of the
Equality Act 2010 relation to discrimination has been considered.
ASSESSMENT 1 CASE STUDY – ALL GENERATION TV
Advise the Board of Directors of AG TV on the merits of Gary’s unfair dismissal claim
According to the present given case, Gary’s DIY show has been a central part of AG
TV’s schedule and he is well known both for his DIY expertise and for his quirky style of
presenting. In addition, he has his own distinctive style of dress and is known for his outspoken
views. However, in recent time Gary’s broadcasting days have recently been significantly
reduced because company has experienced drop advertising revenue as a results of the economic
recession and declining interest in its programmes (Ewing and Qc, 2012). Thus, producer of the
DIY program thinks that refreshing some of the programmes and cutting the staff wage bill is the
most effective way of keeping the business healthy.
However, after conducting the market research it has been observed by the managerial
level people that in order to survive and flourish "Big Bang DIY" needed to grow a wider
audience whilst not losing its core viewing audience. In this, Anne the producer, aim to create a
personality driven program for the predominantly male and aged over 55. In parallel to this,
market research subsequently evaluated that viewers no longer found Gary’s personality and
broadcasting style appealing. Considering this situation, AG TV announced that Rickey
Showman, a 30 year-old model and former presenter on the leading DIY shopping channel was
to be the new presenter on "Big Bang DIY" (Equality law and disability discrimination, 2014).
However, enjoying holiday in Jamaica, Gary received a telephone call from AG TV informing
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him that, because of falling revenues, drastic steps needed to be taken to address the declining
popularity of his programme and therefore his services were no longer required. For this, Gary
sent the ET1 form to AG TV claiming that he has been unfairly dismissed and discriminated
against because of age (Howe, 2013). Before making any advice to Board of Directors of AG TV
it is important to understand the core concepts about the unfair dismissal and the legal issues
involved in it so that appropriate advice can be made.
In this regard, unfair dismissal in UK is considered as the part of UK labour law that
requires fair, and reasonable treatment by employers in case where a person’s job could be
terminated. However, considering the Employment Rights Act 1996, illustrates that employees
have the right to get fair reason before getting dismissed, on the basis of their capability to do the
job, their conduct of whether their position is economically redundant, on grounds of a statute or
some other substantial reasons (Kruppe, Rogowski and Schömann, 2013). According to this act,
it is unfair for the employer to dismiss an employee on the grounds of length of service, being
pregnant, or having asserted certain specified employment rights. Thus, it can be said that
employer can only dismiss the individual from job in lawful manner when he/she follows fair
procedure, acts reasonably and has a fair reason. In context to gov.uk website, it is not
automatically unfair for an employer to dismiss an employee for the discriminatory reason as it is
protected by Equality Act 2010, as there is no statutory provision for this and it is just amounts to
ordinary discrimination (Dismissal: your rights, 2016).
According to the present given scenario, on the basis of employment right act 1996 Gary
have all the rights to know about the fair reasons behind his termination from Big Bang DIY
show. Therefore, it is the duty of producer Anne to make sure that she provide fair and justifiable
reasons behind the termination of Gary from the show. Herein, considering the case of HSBC
Bank plc v Madden and Foley v Post Office [2000], the employment tribunal will judge the
rationality of the employer’s decisions in regards to dismiss an employee on the standard of a
“band of reasonable responses” and accordingly assessing whether the employer’s decision was
one which fall under or outside the range of reasonable responses of judicious employers
(Easton, 2012).
However, employer Anne can dismiss the contract of Gary as she have fair reason or
grounds on the basis of which Gary can be terminated from the post of presenter of the show Big
Bang DIY. In terms of substantive fairness, it is important for Anne to establish the reason
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behind the dismissal and according to the case, market research confirm that popularity of Gary’s
style and approach among the viewers is declining significantly which indeed leads to reduce the
popularity of programme and restrict the revenue generation for the AG TV (Campbell and
Oliver, 2013). Furthermore, second stage is to determine whether the dismissal of Gary was
reasonable in order to prove this, Anne need to justify the derived reasons to the tribunal so that
they can looks at whether decision taken was fair or unfair.
Gary being employed at AG TV since 1981, he is entitled to make a claim for unfair
dismissal, it is because he has been giving the services to cited firm for more than two years. In
this situation, dismissal may be automatically called unfair without any fair reason or warning if
the employee is terminated. Furthermore, Gary has a potential case because Anne targeting age
of Gary and stating that due to his age, he is not able to present the show properly as earlier in
the young age which is the major reason behind declining of revenue and popularity (Baldwin
and Choe, 2014). In this situation, Gary can make discrimination claim to the tribunal as
unlawful treatment has been given to him by the AG TV producer by terminating him from the
show. In this, tribunal assess the situation by considering the treatment Gary got before he was
employed, during the tenure so that difference can act as the evidence for making fair judgement.
ASSESSMENT 2 ESSAY
Title: Equality Act 2010
Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects the people from discrimination in the workplace
and in wider society. However, it is modern version of anti-discrimination law with a single Act,
making it easier for the people to understand and strengthening protection in different situations.
The main purpose of this act is to organise the complicated and numerous collection of laws and
regulations which formed on the basis of anti-discrimination law (Equality Act 2010 -
discrimination and your rights, 2010). In addition to this, Equality Act 2010 was primarily the
Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major constitutional tools shielding discrimination
in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age (Equality Act 2010:
guidance, 2013).
According to this act it is important for the companies and employer’s to make sure that
employees and subordinates are treated in equally at the workplace so that any kind of
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discrimination can be avoided. However, it requires equal treatment in access to employment as
well as private and public services, regardless of the protected characteristics of age, disability,
gender, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. Contradicting to
this, Equality act does not guarantee transsexuals’ access to gender specific services where aim is
to give equal support to male and female. There are several provisions of equality act that came
into force on 1st October 2010 are the basic framework of defence against the direct and indirect
discrimination, harassment and victimisation in services or workplace, public function,
education, associations and transport (Equality Act 2010 - discrimination and your rights, 2010).
This act focuses on ensuring better environment at the workplace and other field so that people
can be safeguard from situations like harassment, discrimination etc. Further, the provision of
this act focuses on changing the definition of gender reassignment, by removing the requirement
for medical supervision. In addition to it, provision of this act concentrates on providing
protection to the people who are discriminated by the protected characteristic of the society or by
the employer at workplace.
Apart from this, there are several provisions defined by the government of UK within the
equality act for discrimination which need to be considered by the people within the community.
In general, discrimination means treating individual unfairly because of what he/she is. The main
purpose of Equality Act 2010 is to protect people from getting discriminated by employers at
workplace or by the businesses or organisations which offers commodities and services like
bank, shops and utility companies (Baldwin and Choe, 2014). In addition to it, this act ensures
that people are getting better health can services at hospitals and care homes by the healthcare
practitioners. On the basis of Equality Act 2010: guidance there are nine protected characteristics
in the equality act. However, discrimination takes place when one or more of these
characteristics is unlawful under the act. At times people get treated badly this is because
someone thinks that individual belongs to a group of people with protected characteristics this is
also considered as unlawful discrimination. Similarly, this act also protects individual from the
people who are associated to his/her life such as family members or friends which have protected
characteristics and individual treated unfairly because of that. This is defined as the
discrimination by association (Equality law and disability discrimination, 2014).
Disability discrimination is another major aspect of equality act 2010 because it protects
the people who are disable from any type of discrimination. In general, disability can be defined
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as the physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on the
individual’s ability to carry out normal day to day activities (Firestone, Miller and Harris, 2012).
However, there are different types of disability discrimination in terms of the employment i.e.
direct and indirect discrimination.
Direct discrimination is illegal for an employer to treat someone with a disability worse
than a person without a disability or without any justifiable reason. According to the equality act,
direct discrimination consist of perceived discrimination in which some is treated unfairly
because it is assumed that they have a disability (Batra, 2016). This discrimination can be
understood through the case of Starbuck and Meseret where lady won the discrimination case
against the company as she was suffering from dyslexic and had informed this problem to the
employer but still he does not provided any support and even neglect the lady at the time of
delegating the responsibility (Weaver, 2016). In addition to this, associative discrimination is
where someone is treated unfairly because they are connected to someone else with a disability.
For instance, a person who is gay is offered a place at an independent school on the conditions
that he hides his sexual orientation and pretends that he is straight is likely to be unlawful direct
discrimination because of sexual orientation. In this parents of that person can face the use of
associative discrimination while attending any PT (Parents-Teacher) meeting (Tunnicliffe,
2013). Lastly, harassment is defined as the act in which person is treated differently because of a
disability in a humiliating or offensive manner. It can be understood through the case of Jenson
v. Eveleth Taconlte Co. [1975], when Jensen was one of the first women to be hired to work in
Eveleth Iron mine in northern Minnesota. However, Jenson and female co-workers suffered
harassment from one of their supervisor and she filed a complaint in 1984. After some time,
more female worker joined her lawsuit which indeed assisted her to settle the claim for $3.5
million with the company. This of its type was the first sexual harassment class action lawsuit in
the US.
On the other hand of it, indirect discrimination is defined as the treating everyone same
but in such a manner that it puts someone with a disability at a disadvantage. For instance, in an
organisation there is rule to use stairs for everyone but in case of disable people it is unfair as
they use wheelchair (Maslik, 2008). However, indirect discrimination is categorized in two
categories discrimination arising from disability in this employer treats someone unfairly
because he/she associated with a particular disability. Whereas, another category of indirect
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discrimination is failure to make reasonable adjustments which are modifications that employers
expected to make so that a person with a disability is put to a disadvantage. This type of
discrimination occurs when employer refuses to record time off for medical appointments from
sick leave which is disadvantageous for the employee (Equality law and disability
discrimination, 2014).
In general competition human rights can be defined as the situations where parties to a
dispute claim that the enjoyment of an individual or group human rights and freedoms are
protected by law would interfere with another’s rights and freedoms. However, this indeed
complicates the normal approach of resolving a human rights disputes wherein, only side claims
a human rights violation. According to the Equality Act, a competing human rights situation
exists when legally protected rights are present in both claims and at least one of the claims is
associated with human rights law. Firstly, code right v. Code right, on the basis of Ontario
Human Rights Code, discrimination is based on 15 different grounds that consist of race,
ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age etc
(Johnson, 2010). It can be associated with the example of college profession and students, in
which professor’s dog affects one of the students who has a sever allergy to dogs. In this
situation, both individuals might make Code-based human rights claims on the ground of
disability. Code right v. Code legal defence is another competing right which apart from
providing protection discrimination based on the specific enumerated grounds the code consist of
exemptions that may act as a defence to claim of discrimination (OHRC Competing rights,
2015). In addition to this, another competing rights of human is Code right v. Charter right, this
illustrates the situations where rights that are protected under the code may compete with rights
guaranteed by the charter.
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REFERENCES
Journals and Books
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claims under Fair Work, Work Choices and the Workplace Relations Act. Australian
Journal of Labour Economics. 16(2). p.295.
Ewing, K.D. and Qc, J.H., 2012. Unfair Dismissal Law Changes—Unfair?. Industrial Law
Journal. 41(1). pp.115-121.
Howe, J., 2013. Poles Apart? The Contestation between the Ideas of No Fault Dismissal and
Unfair Dismissal for Protecting Job Security. Industrial Law Journal. 42(2). pp.122-151.
Kruppe, T., Rogowski, R. and Schömann, K., 2013. Labour Market Efficiency in the European
Union: Employment Protection and Fixed Term Contracts. Routledge.
Easton, C., 2012. Revisiting the law on website accessibility in the light of the UK’s Equality
Act 2010 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities. International Journal of Law and Information Technology. 20(1). pp.19-47.
Campbell, J. and Oliver, M., 2013. Disability politics: understanding our past, changing our
future. Routledge.
Baldwin, M.L. and Choe, C., 2014. Wage discrimination against workers with sensory
disabilities. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 53(1). pp.101-124.
Firestone, J.M., Miller, J.M. and Harris, R., 2012. Implications for Criminal Justice from the
2002 and 2006 Department of Defense Gender Relations and Sexual Harrasment
Surveys. American Journal of Criminal Justice. 37(3). pp.432-451.
Batra, M., 2016. Sexual Harassment at Workplace. Routledge.
Tunnicliffe, J., 2013. Life Together": Public Debates over Human Rights Legislation in Ontario,
1975-1981. Histoire sociale/Social history. 46(92). pp.443-470.
Online
Maslik, M., 2008. From conflict to cohesion’: competing interests in equality law and policy.
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report_web.pdf>. [Accessed on 25th May 2016].
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Weaver, M., 2016. Dyslexic employee wins discrimination case against Starbucks. [Online].
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employee-wins-discrimination-case-starbucks>. [Accessed on 25th May 2016].
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Dismissal: your rights, 2016. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/what-
to-do-if-youre-dismissed>. [Accessed on 25th May 2016].
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2016].
Equality Act 2010 - discrimination and your rights, 2010. [Online]. Available through:
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<https://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/equality-law-and-disability-
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