Published on 12, July, 2020
I mean employment tribunals are not popularity contests, it’s not going to have any effect on the outcome what we say.
as a lay person with an interest in equality law. Another strict understanding that this is not to be taken as legal advice. My understanding is that not being able to bring a case in a timely fashion, because of circumstances beyond your control, is one of the few cases when courts will generally allow cases in brought out of time. At the end of the day though bringing a case out of time is generally at the courts discretion. So it’s usually hard to challenge in either direction once the court made up its mind.
I have absolutely no idea how that will work in an employment tribunal though. Given the age of this post I doubt OP is still watching it. But if they are I’m curious to know what the outcome was.
It can be really hard to prove the discrimination and employers often go to some lengths to make sure you cannot.
I vividly recall when I had to recruit a new member for my team after one resigned, I was told to make sure I hired a female as the team was 80% male and the higher management though the team needed more diversity.
This meant I had to tell the recruiters to make sure I got both male and female candidates for a role that has 99% male applicants normally - then when selecting candidates for interviews I had to be careful in the reasonings I used for selecting candidates.
Then the worst part for me was seeing one after another or very capable male candidates interview knowing that I couldn't hire them and instead select one of a much less suitable batch of female candidates.
I did get regular reminders from my boss that I must not put anything in writing pointing out that I only wanted a female hire at the end of the day.
This example was a sexual discrimination against males rather than against autists but the principle remains that if the company do not want a particular profile then they will normally keep it silent and hidden.
This is a fairly widespread practice in my experience.
You must like your boss or your job far more than me then. I would have tried to get something in writing and then take it to the EHRC. Or just hire the best candidate and when they complain point out that there was nothing in writing saying it had to be a girl.
I was on an interview panel and the Chairman said something like " I hope we get a good male applicant. We can't afford another staff member to go on maternity leave." It was not an instruction, just a casual comment over coffee. As it happened we had a very good female candidate who got the job. But the message was pretty clear, if two candidates come out equal, pick the man.
Earlier in my career I had a problem when it came to booking annual leave during school holidays. All the mums with kids wanted the school holidays, and because I was a single man without kids they thought I should be the one to give way, even though I had seniority. I also got more out-of-borough visits, because female colleagues claimed they had to be back in time to collect kids from school. The "family-friendly" policies were discriminating against single men.