Pay privacy - employers will no longer be able to rely on any clauses in their contracts which state that employees may not discuss their pay with other employees.  Employers will also be in breach of the new law if they victimise employees in any way for sharing this sort of information with colleagues.

 

Positive Discrimination - when recruiting, employers will be permitted to choose a candidate from an under-represented group where there are two candidates who are otherwise equally qualified (although this measure may not survive the general election).

 

Health Screening - employers will not be able to ask job applicants questions about their health prior to making a job offer (or in some limited cases at the short-listing stage).  There are some exceptions to this rule which are related to establishing whether the application will be able to carry out a particular function which is an essential element of the job and also to establish whether the employer needs to make any adjustments to the recruitment process to accommodate any disability.

 

Discrimination by association - employees will be protected from discrimination even if they are not from the particular protected group.  For instance, it will be unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee on the grounds of disability where it is the employee's relative who is disabled.

 

Discrimination by mistake - it will make no difference whether or not the employee who is subject to discriminatory treatment is from the particular protected group.  For instance, if a straight employee is subject to homophobic harassment by colleagues because they mistakenly believe him to be gay, he will still be protected under the law.