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Ian Campbell: Ian Campbell is Marketing Director of CEPEC, the human resources consultancy
The employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 will come into force on 2 December 1996, along with a Code of Practice from the Department for Education and Employment. Ian Campbell reviews the issues and provides case examples.
The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act will come into force at the end of 1996, requiring employers to take reasonable steps to avoid disabled people being disadvantaged in the workplace as a result of their disability. The Act will make it an offence for employers, as well as providers of goods or services, to discriminate against people solely on the grounds of disability.
This may mean changing the physical features of the workplace, the hours of working or equipment, and carries cost implications for employers. Only those organizations with fewer than 20 staff will be exempt. However, unlike the Race Relations and Sex Discrimination Acts, there are a number of exemptions which mean it will still be possible for some employers to treat disabled people less fairly than others.
The Disability Discrimination Act will not automatically make consideration of disability illegal in employment-related decision making or the provision of goods and services. Nor does it contain a definition of indirect discrimination but, instead, prohibits discrimination on the grounds of disability only where the employer's decision is held to have been "unreasonable".
The effect of this is that much of the Act will be open to interpretation until precedents have been established. This is going to make it extremely difficult for many employers to know what they should do in order to fulfil their obligations to make reasonable adjustments. So, are those employers who are currently ignoring the Act acting sensibly? There are many who would argue that they are not and they recently gathered at a conference in London to put forward the case for the employment of disabled people, Act or no Act.
The conference was organized by CEPEC, the human resources consultancy with 25 years' experience in the area of equal opportunities, and it attracted expert consultants in the field of disabled employment and employers, such as Sainsbury's and The Post Office, with policies in this area.
How many disabled people...