[Gllug] OT: Health on job applications

[abower at thebowery.co.uk]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2003 at 02:47:39AM +0000, Christopher Hunter wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 Oct 2003 12:04 am, Martin A. Brooks wrote:
> > At 22:57 27/10/2003 +0000, you wrote:
> 
> > Clues is actually about to take on an a new employee. This person has a
> > terminal disease.  The fact this person will need regular time off for
> > hospital visits and may unexpectedly need extended time out from work is
> > simply not an issue: we think this person is perfectly capable of doing the
> > job we have in mind.
> 
> You are a very unusual employer!  Employers generally DO discriminate on 
> health grounds, though they'll make every effort to hide the fact.  It's 
> usually "justified" as "efficiency".

You are allowed to discriminate against sick/ill people, because part of
signing a contract could be to say you are suitable and available to carry out
your job. The employer can quite legitimatley say that if you are not available
to work contracted hours then they won't offer you the job. 

Its the same if you are working for an employer and take quite a lot of time 
off sick (although you do get protection after being employed for a year). I 
ended up losing a job because I had a nasty recurring tooth infection which 
meant I hadn't been available for about 1/4 of my contracted hours (averaged 
over 9 months) which lost me my job, the worst part was that I was trying to 
get this health problem sorted for over a year through the NHS route (they 
wanted to send me into hospital to have the tooth removed) until I found a 
friendly dentist who had no qualms about ripping the tooth out on the spot, by
the time this happened I had been on a waiting list for over a year, what
really made me feel gutted was that I really loved the job and I managed to get
the tooth removed about 3 days after having my contract terminated. 

Thanks
Adam
-- 
jabberid = quinophex at jabber.earth.li
AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug