Disability Discrimination Act.

A friend of mine has had an interesting experience.

She is employed as a bus driver. Owing to osteoporosis she is now
unable to drive a bus. She IS capable of doing admin work (she is
well qualified in this respect)

She has been off work for over a year and a half. Throughout this
time she has NOT been offered redeployment to any of the vacancies in
the organization. She has been told by her employers that "there is a
fair and consistent recruitment process, as like everyone else you
would have to be skills tested, and you would have to go against
everyone else in the recruitment process, you would have to be the
best candidate for the job. We can't just give you a job"

As this is clearly contrary to Baroness Hale's findings in Archibald
Vs Fife Council (2004) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldjudgmt/jd040701/arch-1.htm
she submitted a grievance under the company's grievance scheme, citing
that she had been discriminated against as a disabled person, contrary
to the law.

The company have rejected this, stating that, although she was told
that she would have to go through a competitive selection process,
what they actually meant (and admit to failing to communicating this
very well) is that she would NOT have to go through a competitive
selection process if she had applied for any of the vacancies. They
would have given her a skills test and if she passed this test then
she would have been appointed to the position.

As she has had around a dozen meetings with her managers since going
off sick, and this has been mentioned MANY times, by various
managers. It seems that all of these managers failed to communicate
their meanings very well, but when they said that they could only fill
the vacancies with the "best candidate" what they actually MEANT was
that if my disabled friend passed the skills test then they would
offer her the job.

I wonder how much extra compensation the company's ludicrous
scriptwriters have cost them?

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