Disability Online for CSR Practitioners; Labour Standards for Disabled Employees
An Employers' Forum on Disability Briefing for CSR Practitioners
In association with AccountAbility With the support of Cable & Wireless
Labour standards are a widely agreed set of procedures, practices and/or specifications to cope with the problem of labour conditions involving injustice, hardship, privation and related social policy, human and civil rights matters (1) All of these issues impact on the estimated 610 million disabled people worldwide (2), many of whom are in work. Millions more people become disabled each year at work, many of them because companies have not adequately addressed labour standards within their workplaces.
Only 17% of disabled people are born with a disability (3). Most people become disabled during their working lives - many of them in the workplace. 77% of disabled people become disabled post 16 - of those 97% had had paid work before the onset of disability. Companies need to get better at ensuring that people are not disabled due to poor workplace practices and disability management, as well as retaining employees who do become disabled.
Current labour standards initiatives such as SA8000 and the Ethical Trading Initiative require that companies develop policies and procedures which protect employees' human rights and improve employee relations. These are based on relevant conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), part of the UN family, which companies also commit to.
There are a number of physical and mental impairments which are specifically related to modern work-practices and the workplace. 6% of all adults who have worked in the UK (about 2.2 million people) report a condition that they believe was caused by or aggravated by work. The most commonly reported are musculo-skeletal disorders, followed by stress and depression. (4)
Similar research in Australia found that of people of working age with a disability, nearly a quarter of their main impairments were caused through accident or injury (23 per cent) or were due to working conditions or overwork (15 per cent). Of those due to accidents, more than a third (36 per cent) of the accidents occurred at work. (5)
This trend is likely to be reflected across all countries within which companies operate. In countries where workplace standards are lower the incidence of disability caused by workplace accidents and other work-related factors is likely to be higher.
Good disability management involves working with the individual to address their specific needs enabling them to continue working. This approach can be effectively integrated into wider labour standards and can improve productivity, reduce sickness absenteeism, reduce accidents at work and improve health and safety records in general.
When considering the impact of labour standards on disabled people, companies should:
- Operate wherever they are as though the obligation to make adjustments and not discriminate against people on grounds of disability existed in law. This approach will enable companies to utilise the learning on disability which has been integrated into law in the developed world to help protect the human rights and improve the productivity of disabled people in the developing world
- Ensure that Health and Safety obligations lead to best practice in retaining people when they become disabled. Companies should not use health and safety law as a reason for not employing disabled people. In almost all cases there are adjustments which can be made to ensure that the health of safety of all employees, including those with disabilities can be protected without excluding disabled people from the workforce
- Use their global reach to inform and educate colleagues around the world that the best way to ensure that everyone contributes to business success is to understand that the word "disability" should trigger making reasonable adjustments in the workplace rather than triggering only medical intervention
References
- ILO http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/norm/whatare/lessfrml/
- ILO, Unlocking the Evidence, Employers' Forum on Disability, 2000.
- Social & Community Planning, SCPR, 1990
- Workplace Health, Health Education Authority, 1997
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report 27/10/2000