This petition was submitted during the 2010-2015 parliament
Rejected petition To protect unpaid volunteers with anti-discrimination legislation
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At present unpaid volunteers are not protected by anti-discrimination legislation, unlike paid staff. This means that a paid member of staff can 'legally' intimidate, harass and abuse a volunteer by being sexist, ageist, racist and homophobic to them and if the volunteer then complains they do not have a legal leg to stand on. This surely is one of the few forms of legally permitted forms of discrimination in a British workplace, and when many more people are being encouraged to volunteer in David Cameron's "Big Society", and many more out of work people are encouraged to get some voluntary experience on their CV, then surely they need to be properly protected in law.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.