Show # 9: Modern Slavery, and Vicarious Liability

Mar 20, 2016, 07:51 AM

In this week's show I will be talking about the subjects of modern slavery, and vicarious liability.

Many UK businesses will be of the view that the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which comes into force on 1st April 2016, is not relevant to them. Press reports have given us the popular popular view of modern slavery as being:

*The sweat shop labour working in unsafe conditions in Bangladesh to produce garments and footwear for global lifestyle brands; or *The horrendous working conditions in some of the mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; or **The harsh working conditions, long hours, and poor pay of migrant workers on some of the tuna fishing boats operating in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea that stay at sea for a long time.

You might be thinking: We are a firm of accountants and none of our audit clients has a turnover above £36 million, and neither do we so I cannot see how the Act applies to us.

Or, you might be a cleaning company that cleans offices or cleans the windows of commercial buildings. You may say that a turnover of more than £36 million is only in your wildest dreams, so the Modern Slavery Act cannot apply to you.

Both of those responses miss an important point about the Act as I explain in the show.

Vicarious liability is something that most employers, and few if any HR professionals give any thought to, but you should. The extent to which you, as a business owner, are at risk of liability to a third party who suffers injury as a result of the actions of your employees in the course of their work is a factor determining your employers' liability insurance premium. The scope of that vicarious liability has recently been extended by case law. I explain how in the show.

#myVirtualHR #ModernSlavery #VicariousLiabilty