Abstract
The literature indicates that disabled workers in the UK experience more social injustice than UK workers as a whole, including in relation to employment rates and wage levels. Drawing on the author’s 2015 qualitative study of 265 disabled workers, this paper considers how successful the Equality Act 2010 Reasonable Adjustments Duty has been in tackling this social injustice. It finds that in the context of the “flexible” labour force (consisting of insecure jobs), and the “reformed” welfare state, the Reasonable Adjustments Duty is ill-equipped to achieve its original purpose of reducing the substantial disadvantage that disabled workers face. As regards the “flexible” labour force, there appeared, for example, to be a strong reluctance to make reasonable adjustments for workers on zero hours contracts; while, as regards the impact of welfare reform, fear of being dismissed and facing benefit sanctions discouraged zero hours workers from pushing for adjustments which had been refused. The paper goes on to suggest a possible wording for a strengthened Reasonable Adjustments Duty. It concludes, however, that, without changes to unfair dismissal, and other labour laws, to address the wider iniquities of the flexible labour market, a strengthened duty will not be able to prevent a long term increase in social injustice for disabled workers.
Highlights
Chaplin and Davidson ([41], p. 1) state “The results showed that people who develop a dementia while still in employment do not always receive the ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the workplace to which they are entitled under the Equality Act (2010)”
A particular problem identified in the Reasonable Adjustments Study was participants being hired as “self-employed”, and so being taken to not be entitled to reasonable adjustments, but in effect working as short-term contract workers
It is not clear whether the disability employment gap has narrowed since the duty came into force under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 [34]; and it’s not clear what contribution, if any, the Duty has made to any narrowing of the gap
Summary
This paper uses qualitative data, from the author’s 2015 study, to provide insights into the impact of United Kingdom disability employment law on social justice for disabled workers. 8); and, of particular relevance to this paper, the Disability Discrimination (Amendment) Act 2005 introduced the Public Sector Disability Equality Duty (DED). The last statutory strengthening of disability employment law came with the Equality Act (EqA) 2010 This placed the different “protected characteristics”, such as “race” and “disability”, under one legal roof. A number of important employment law protections (including the Reasonable Adjustments Duty) remained out of reach of the Coalition and successor Conservative governments on account of being required under European Union directives. This may, change that the UK has voted to leave the EU. Work and Pensions [29], in its written evidence to the ongoing Disability Employment Gap inquiry, does not refer to a role for equality law in reducing the gap
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