BEING terminally ill should be recognised as a protected characteristic in the workplace, the RMT argued yesterday.

Delegates said employers should help workers to swerve any “avoidable stress and worry” when they are ill.

The motion called on employers to ensure that terminally ill workers do not have to face being made unemployed while they are dying, and that management should liaise with terminally ill workers to make them feel as comfortable as possible in the workplace.

Portsmouth delegate Zack Rosen said: “This would give people protection to let them decide how they will spend their final months, and to know that nothing will change financially.

“That would provide real peace of mind to our workers, their families, and those that depend on them.”

Conference also voted to back the Trade Union Congress’s Dying to Work campaign, which seeks to legally secure adequate protection for terminally ill workers.