Disability Discrimination

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Talk on disability discrimination in employment

Today I will be looking at the issue of disability discrimination in employment. I will cover areas such as the background to the anti discrimination measures and          provide an overview and an analysis of the current legislation both European and domestic. I have also provided some examples to show you today taken from various articles and case law. I hope you enjoy my presentation this morning.

Statistics have shown that disabled people account for almost a fifth of the working-age population in Great Britain, but for only one-eighth of all individuals in employment. There are more than 6.5 million individuals with a work-limiting, long-term disability or health problem in Great Britain, [Smith & Thomas] but disabled people are merely half as likely as non-disabled people to be in employment. [Pearson & Watson.] Disabled employees make on average two-thirds of the wages of non-disabled employees, and it is expected that they would be employed in manual and unskilled occupations compared to non-disabled employees. [Smith & Thomas]. Partly, this can be made clear by the effect which a physical or mental impairment might have on a disabled person’s ability to carry out certain duties, however there is also sound evidence to imply that disabled individuals experience systematic discrimination compared with employment, this was often as a result of ill-informed, conventional statements on the part of employers about the influence of certain disabilities on the work-capacity of such employees and the complexity of making changes to working arrangements and changes to the premises to accommodate for the disabled employees.

I have put together some interesting facts, which I have taken from a report conducted by Pearson and Watson, which is based on issues concerning disability discrimination. Some interesting facts were that disabled individuals are no longer forced into confinement, regardless of any amendments, which have been made; disabled individuals in the UK are still subject to discrimination, they are discriminated due to their status. A statement was made by Mike Oliver [Pearson & Watson] who termed the ‘social model of disability’, which has come to dominate disability politics in the UK and beyond. Basically, this model claims that disability does not occur because of an impairment or medical condition but is the consequence of social organization. A certain fact, which caused great concern to myself, was in regards to a fact, which stated that approx nine in ten disabled Londoners have been subjected to harassment.

Up until 1995 there was no such legislation to protect such employees in regards to the discriminative issues they were experiencing in the workplace. Following an rigorous and well thought out campaign for the introduction of comprehensive civil rights legislation for disabled people, and no less than 14 unsuccessful attempts to establish Private Members’ Bills on the subject matter, the Conservative government established the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), the initial legislative attempt to tackle the issue of discrimination against disabled individuals.  The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 was introduced to tackle the discrimination that many disabled individuals face. Some of these measures took effect in 1996, while others were introduced over time. The Act gives disabled people right in the areas of: Employment, Access to goods facilities and services and buying or renting land or property. The act covers individuals with physical disabilities that affect movement and the senses such as sight and hearing, medically recognised mental illnesses and mental impairments such as: learning disabilities which were used to be called mental handicap, severe disfigurements such as scars, birth marks and skin diseases but degree of severity are important as is where the disfigurement is.

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A definition of disability can be found in section 1 (1); it states that an individual has a disability ‘if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.’ This definition has been criticised for being too narrow, it is seen to have adopted a medical approach as opposed to a social model of disability as it outlines disability in regards to impairments rather than concentrating on the ways in which disabled individuals are being disadvantaged by the organisation, arrangement and approaches of the ...

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