Sexual orientation and identity in employment relationships

Abstract

The world of work and business continues to be a hostile space for LGBTI people, especially transgender people. Discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation and identity manifests itself, as in society, with varying intensity in relation to people from these groups. It is a form of discrimination with its own characteristics, such as preventive concealment, self-segregation, and LGBTI phobia, which is a determinant of high doses of violence at work. Based on the knowledge of these features of discrimination against LGBTI people, this paper analyses the regulatory framework of anti-discrimination protection in the workplace and its judicial application, identifying its main shortcomings.

Likewise, the assessment of the future Law for the real and effective equality of trans people and for the guarantee of LGBTI people’s rights is not positive, as it is clearly insufficient to address the defining features of discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity in access to employment and occupation. Labour measures are regulated, as in the current regional regulations, as actions belonging to public policies, without the cause of this “self-limitation of competences” of the state legislator in labour matters being made explicit. No obligations are established for companies, nor for workers and their trade union representatives. Nor does the law establish obligations for collective bargaining to achieve effective equality for LGBTI people. Finally, the demands that LGBTI phobia be considered as a psychosocial risk have not been fulfilled, nor have the necessary protocols and action measures been established for its prevention.

In short, the assessment of this law from a legal-labour perspective should finally lead us to reflect on the State’s obligation to guarantee equality in the field of private relations, given its responsibility for the protection of human rights, also in companies.