IEA Head of Cultural Affairs Marc Glendening has written in Conservative Home criticising the proposed Worker Protection Bill for imposing legal liability on employers for the conduct of abusive customers, despite having no authority to control their behaviour.

Marc wrote:

“Under this law, harassment is defined as ‘unwanted conduct’ which violates someone’s ‘dignity’ in some undefined way, creating an ‘intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’; harassment includes ‘spreading malicious rumours’ and ‘picking on and regularly undermining someone’.

“As the Free Speech Union’s in-house lawyer, Bryn Harris has commented, this apparent protection leaves open the possibility for comments thought to be ‘indecent or grossly offensive’ to be the basis of a legal action.

“With the legislation using such vague, ill-defined language, it doesn’t take too much imagination to envisage this law being used by financially opportunistic, psychologically unstable, or hyper-sensitive employees against the enterprises for which they work.”

Read the full piece here.