Discrimination in the workplace

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) is intended to help protect disabled people from discrimination in a number of different areas. Someone who is living with HIV is considered disabled for the purposes of the DDA.

Employment protection is now in place which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate on grounds of disability. This regulation applies from the time an employee (or prospective employee) applies for a job, through to their employment (by regulating the terms and conditions of employment), to an employee’s promotion. It also covers any selection for redundancy.

Your rights

Direct discrimination is against the law. It is also against the law for the employer not to consider making reasonable adjustments to cater for the special needs of for your disability. Examples of reasonable adjustments could be transfering you to an entirely different job, without you being required to compete for it, or allowing you to work more flexible hours.

The DDA states that a disabled person may sometime be treated less favourably, if there is a justifiable reason for the employer to do so. However, it would be up to the employer to prove that a risk assessment has been carried out and that a reasonable judgement has been made on the basis of medical evidence provided by the employee.

It is also against the law:

• to violate the dignity of a disabled person or to create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the disabled person
• for your employer to victimise you for taking action under the DDA, or to victimise you for helping someone else to take action.

Hepatitis C

If you're living with Hepatitis C then the law is different: contact THT Direct to find out your rights.

How we can help

If you’re concerned that you may be experiencing discrimination in the workplace as a result of your HIV status you can contact THT Direct - we can advise and support you.

Employers' information

If you are an employer and you would like to find out about your duties and responsibilities regarding HIV in the workplace, you can find more details on our Employers page.