Can Employers Force Veganism On Employees?

• Published date: 22 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Discrimination, Disability & Sexual Harassment, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations
• Law Firm: Herrington Carmichael
• Author: Michelle Scott

There has been a recent interesting debate about whether an employer can require an employee to follow a vegan diet whilst at work. This came about when a recent job applicant posted an email they had received from a potential employer onto social media channels. In the email, the employer had advised the potential employee that in order to be a successful candidate for the job they would have to follow a strict vegan diet whilst at work. This included only bringing vegan food to work or else they would be forced to leave the employer's premises to have their lunch. The employer allowed candidates to be non-vegan at home, but veganism in the workplace was a strict requirement for the job. This requirement did not appear in the job advert itself. This has caused a great amount of debate and raises the interesting question of whether the employer is within their rights to have these requirements.

What is the legal position?

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of any animal product, particularly in your diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. However, there is an important legal distinction between dietary veganism and ethical veganism, which changes how a vegan can be treated under the law.

As a starting point, the Equality Act places a legal obligation on employers not to directly or indirectly discriminate against an employee because of a protected characteristic, which includes religious or philosophical belief. Whether veganism can amount to a religious or philosophical belief has been a subject of debate for several years.

The law says that a philosophical belief is a belief that must be:

• Genuinely held
• Relate to a substantial aspect of human life
• Attain a certain level of importance
• Be worthy of respect in a democratic society; and
• Be a real belief and not just an opinion.

In January 2020. the Employment Tribunal held that ethical veganism is classified as a philosophical belief and is therefore a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. However, ethical veganism is different to dietary veganism, which would be limited to following a plant-based diet. Ethical vegans try to exclude all forms of animal cruelty or exploitation and as such the belief goes much further than limiting what they eat, and instead it impacts their life much more widely. For example, an ethical vegan would avoid products such as leather, silk and wool which come from animals and all products that have been tested...