[Gllug] OT: Health on job applications

[Doug Winter]

On Tue 28 Oct Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> On Tue 28 Oct, Ben Whyte bloviated thus:
> 
> > They are quite entitled to ask this as it effects your ability to do the 
> > work that they are paying you for.
> 
> So, if you're female, would they also have the right to force you to
> take a pregnancy test?  How about if they insist you take
> contraception if you want the job?  Same issue, really!

That is why it is specifically protected in law.  Most job
discrimination law is based on the idea that discrimination on the basis
of gender, race or disability is unreasonable in itself - which is often
the case.

However there are some cases where it is considered advantageous for
society as a whole that employers are required to shoulder some of the
burden of cost and inconvenience of things such as pregnancy and
installing ramps and what have you for people who are unable to walk
etc.

This isn't a general principle though - that employers are required to
shoulder every burden going.  If you are feeble and sickly then you
can't really be surprised that there are lots of jobs employers won't
want to give you.
 
> So that means that if you have poor health, you are unemployable.  How
> fair!

Since when was life meant to be fair?  The laws about job discrimination
aren't really even about fairness, even if that's how they are portrayed
- it's bad for everyone, including employers, for them to discriminate
unreasonably, and there are many social ills caused by racial and sexual
discrimination that can only be tackled by legislation.  

If it was only an issue of fairness I doubt any government would have
cared at all.  Discrimination against the poorly is not a major social
problem, and isn't, as far as I can tell, against the interest of
society as a whole.

> > Some companies will ask you to undertake a medical, if they have any 
> > problems, and any job offer will be subject to a suitable medical report 
> > being received.
> 
> The sort of companies for which I will not work.  On principle.

Lucky you aren't a premiership footballer then :)

doug.

-- 
6973E2CF print 2C95 66AD 1596 37D2 41FC  609F 76C0 A4EC 6973 E2CF
"Perl is worse than Python because people wanted it worse." 
    -- Larry Wall, 14/10/1998

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