It's Ok to discriminate against volunteers?

The relationship between a charity and a volunteer is clearly different to that of  charity and employee - but how different? For many years, no one was absolutely sure. Informally, I know of at least one case some years ago of a charity facing a Tribunal over alleged discrimination against a volunteer. The Tribunal was willing to treat the volunteer as an "employee" because although no money changed hands, volunteers benefited from the training provided. However, the discrimination itself wasn't proven. As Tribunal decisions aren't binding, the "employee" issue was capable of being decided either way by other Tribunals and perhaps it has been.

However, it was generally believed in the voluntary sector that volunteers don't have employment-style legal rights but on Wednesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the position in the case of  X v Mid Sussex CAB. A volunteer claimed disability discrimination by her local CAB and the Tribunal, EAT, Court of Appeal and now the Supreme Court ruled that she doesn't come within the protections offered to employees.

Although this may save charities money, it seems unfortunate. For some people, their volunteer role can be immensely important to them and many charities will recognise that and treat people well. It's encouraged by Volunteering England and is simple common sense. (It's possible that in X v Mid Sussex CAB, there was no actual discrimination - the legal issue meant that didn't get decided)

Is it possible or advisable to give volunteers more rights? I don't know but it's a valid question.

To make things more complicated, there may be some volunteers who are covered. That's because of article 3(1)(b) of the Framework Directive 2000/78/EEC applying to those seeking access to “vocational training” and “practical work experience”. So some internships might be covered.

Another possibility in some cases is to say that providing interesting volunteering experiences is one of the services a charity provides (even if they never thought of it that way) and discrimination in service provision may be caught by the Equality Act 2010 and result in a County Court claim. Those interested in some of these more complex issues might do well to read the paper by Cloisters