Disability Discrimination is outlawed. Blatant discrimination doesn’t exist any more does it?

It does!

Discrimination is unashamed, and it is direct and often very deliberate. People get humiliated, and dismissed from their work because of their disability all the time. It is still not seen as acceptable in the private AND the public sector to be disabled. It is often very acceptable in the workplace to ostracise, to mock and jeer those who have disabilities. Practical ‘jokes’ against disabled workers serve to facilitate bonding of the ‘in’ group. To this end, disabled workers are often subject to constant, daily, and horrific abuse by co-workers. This often last for years until the disabled worker just gives up and leaves. To add insult to injury, the worker will then find himself or herself sanctioned when trying to claim benefits!

If the abuse is not actually encouraged by the management, the management often turns a blind eye to the abuse. When the disabled worker turns to his/her line manager for support, it is often not to be found. Instead, the disabled worker is seen as not pulling her/his weight, of upsetting the other workers, of undermining company morale etc . Trying to resolve the matter informally by trying to enlist the help of a manager can make things much worse, leading to further and worse abuse, with the often inevitable exit of the disabled worker from the company. This can be by resignation, or by a summary dismissal – in fact an unfair dismissal (dismissal for a discriminatory reason is described in Statute as an automatically unfair dismissal, even where a worker has worked for less than one year with the company, and thus in normal circumstances only being eligible for compensation for Wrongful Dismissal).

Of course the dismissal might be dressed up as a resignation (this being demanded in exchange for the P45 being given, and holiday pay that is owing etc. Without the P45, accessing benefits is difficult). An incident might even be staged, provoking the worker into a reaction, which then leads to dismissal for gross misconduct on the part of the worker. Or the worker might be overloaded with work, set up to fail, until she/ he gets the message, and resigns, or just walks off the job.

Before resigning or walking off the job, you should take advice. You could claim Constructive Dismissal. To claim Constructive Unfair Dismissal, certain conditions have to be met however. Just walking off in a huff and trying to claim Constructive Dismissal is not recommended. You will not get far with that. As is often the case in employment law, the worker needs to carefully prepare the case in advance, and over a period of time, to be able to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Productivity of the individual worker, her/his history of loyally working for the company often has no bearing on the case. There is almost no gratitude or loyalty nowadays by employers to their workers.

Company policies, such as Equal Opportunities, Sex Equality Policies, Grievance Procedures etc are often not worth the paper they are written on. Even worse, they are often just a smokescreen, a disguising of the real policies in effect in the company, used in protecting them against workers who might wish to try and enforce their rights. It is of course difficult bringing an employer to book at the best of times, as discrimination law is complex. Bringing a case to tribunal involves a massive effort on behalf of the worker’s representative, and the worker. If you are disabled, and maybe not in the best of health, daily life is difficult enough, without undertaking a tribunal case. Employers know this, and take advantage of it.

A case was recently taken on, and won by Dave Greenstein of workrep.co.uk in which a substantial out of court settlement was achieved. The case involved a worker of a leading housing corporation, who after becoming disabled, was suddenly found to be surplus to requirements. The series of events that this worker was subjected to was shocking. Her tormentors were not the workers, but rather several layers of management. They could not claim total ignorance of the Disability Discrimination Act, as their work involved managing, and implementing programmes of educating others in best practise as regards disability. The corporation itself was happy to flout discrimination law however, when it suited its purposes. As is usual in the settlement of cases, a confidentiality clause was written into the settlement agreement. This means that details identifying the corporation and persons involved will not be included when the full report is put on the workrep website.

The case lasted over 6 months, with the other side who had employed 2 separate teams of lawyers to defend them, denying all the claims made by the disabled worker. In this truly horrific case, the worker involved had been threatened with dismissal, something that the Tribunal would have declared as automatically Unfair Dismissal. Apart from the discrimination issue, Health and Safety issues were totally disregarded, when it came to this disabled worker.

If you are being bullied at work, for whatever reason, or being discriminated against because of your disability, you don’t need to take it. Whether it is disability discrimination as in this case, or other types of discrimination such as sex discrimination or race discrimination, or gender discrimination, it is against the law. If you can document your case, and hopefully even be able to bring witnesses, you should be able to bring the perpetrators to book. In doing so you could potentially win compensation, and also help demonstrate to those in powerful positions, that such behaviour is not acceptable, and that sooner or later they will be asked to justify themselves.

At the moment it is legal to discriminate against older workers. The clock is ticking though for employers who do this. In October 2006 new regulations will mean age discrimination is illegal.

For further advice, in preparing your case and gathering evidence at an early stage, and help regarding the tribunal route to protect yourself from illegal acts by your employer go to www.workrep.co.uk