Employers beware! New anti-slavery laws came into force on 6 April under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The act creates an offence where a person is found guilty of holding another person in slavery or servitude, or requiring someone to perform compulsory labour. Conviction under the Act could result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years!!
The Act was brought into force to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people such as migrants with little English however the government has confirmed that it is unlikely to affect employers who comply with current employment legislation. This is because "forced labour requires a level of coercion or deception beyond that of a normal employment agreement” meaning an employer would have to know that the arrangement was oppressive and not truly voluntary, or turn a blind eye to it, to be liable under the Act.
Nicola is a Legal Assistant in the Employment Law Team at Hillyer McKeown LLP. If you would like to contact Nicola please email her at nicola.cuggy@law.uk.com
The following Cookies are used on this Site. Users who allow all the Cookies will enjoy the best experience and all functionality on the Site will be available to you.
You can choose to disable any of the Cookies by un-ticking the box below but if you do so your experience with the Site is likely to be diminished.
In order to interact with this site.
To help us to measure how users interact with content and pages on the Site so we can make
things better.
To show content from Google Maps.
To show content from YouTube.
To show content from Vimeo.
To share content across multiple platforms.
To view and book events.
To show user avatars and twitter feeds.
To show content from TourMkr.
To interact with Facebook.
To show content from WalkInto.