Employers face unlimited penalties as a result of a new EU directive which outlaws sexual harassment in the workplace. The directive requires all member states to implement the new law by April 2005.
It states that sexual harassment occurs in the workplace when "any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment".
The 1998 Employment Equality Act already defines sexual harassment in the Irish workplace, which it defines as any "act of physical intimacy" by one person to another, any request for "sexual favours" or "any other act or conduct" by one person to another, including "spoken words, gestures or the production, display or circulation of written words, pictures or other material", which are unwelcome and could "reasonably be regarded as sexually, or otherwise on the gender ground, offensive, humiliating or intimidating".
The main difference is that the maximum compensation for employees under the existing legislation is €12,700 or two years' salary.
The new directive, which amends the 1976 Equal Treatment Directive, also obliges employers to introduce preventative measures and to publish regular "equality plans". These must be made readily available to all members of the workforce.
The legislation applies to men as well as women and a recent survey conducted for the Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner, Ms Anna Diamantopoulou, found that 10 per cent of men, and between 40 and 50 per cent of women had experienced workplace sexual harassment at some stage.
The directive also extends equality legislation in other areas such as gender discrimination, maternity and paternity leave and a requirement for companies to produce equality plans.
Ms Diamantopoulou said: "The general level of awareness of sexual harassment in member states is very poor. Now sexual harassment, absent from most national laws today, will finally have a name."
Ms Diamantopoulou is also proposing new childcare legislation that would allow working parents to "swap" paid leave. The main beneficiaries would be fathers. In most member states there is no paid paternity leave. She is to meet employers and unions on the matter next month.
Employers are expected to resist strongly. The new proposals on parents swapping paid leave entitlements have been strongly criticised by the Federation of European Employers.
Its director-general, Mr Robin Chater, said yesterday that while the federation welcomed any measures that recognised the realities of the labour market for working parents these proposals would create huge practical difficulties, particularly where the parents worked for different employers, had different entitlements or had children from more than one relationship.