Not Just Users of Services, but Contributors to Society: the Opportunities of the Disability Rights Agenda

Abstract

In 2001 Ms Melanophy – a successful customer services manager in an educational publishing company – won an employment tribunal case. Her performance and conduct had been temporarily affected by her manic depression. Rather than finding out what the problem was, the employer sacked her for gross misconduct while she was absent from work receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital. The tribunal found that, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the employer had acted ‘hastily and prematurely’ and had treated her less favourably because of her disability: in other words, she had been subject to discrimination. Mental health survivors and professionals have become so used to the daily reality of discrimination – NIMBY campaigns that de-rail service developments, insurance and mortgage refusals, media headlines like ‘Nuts to be caged for life by docs’ (The Sun, 2000) – that it is easy to overlook new developments that begin to confer rights. After years of having passively to accept discrimination with virtually no redress, it may be hard to believe that change is possible. Yet Ms Melanophy was significantly aided by recent disability rights policy. Before 1996 there was no law in force to prohibit employment discrimination on grounds of mental health status or other disability. Before 2000 there was no Disability Rights Commission (DRC) to enforce the law and promote equality of opportunity. Ms Melanophy’s case was backed and funded by the DRC whose chair, Bert Massie, stated: ‘Thousands of people with manic depression hold down good jobs successfully and bosses need to be sensitive to the particular impact of an employee’s disability and respond appropriately. Employers have every right to expect high performance but it does not make good business sense to sack people hastily. This case shows that employers are putting themselves at risk of litigation if they do so’ (Community Care, 3 May 2001).