Saturday, March 15, 2014
Hampton (Omni Shoreham)
Disabled people enjoy special protection according to secondary EU-Law. However, in times of crisis, young disabled people are in danger of being the first ones who suffer from austerity measures. Before 2010, disabled people in Austria enjoyed special protection from the very beginning of their employment contract, this now only applies when the individual has been employed for a minimum of four years. The justification of this move was that these changes would increase the levels of employment for disabled people. But this is a highly controversial argument that has been little substantiated. The result is that young disabled people who are at the beginning of their working career simply fall outside the scope of special protection against dismissal. More broadly, such a group finds themselves further hindered in that like all workers, protection against unfair dismissal does not apply until the individual has been employed for a minimum of six months. The discrepancy between these interests is also obvious in the ECJ’s rulings. In a recent judgment (ECJ C-335/11, 337/11), the Court reasoned that it can be justified to apply reduced periods of notice due to the fact that the worker concerned has been frequently absent because of illness. This paper analyses these conflicting movements within employment policy surround young disabled people. The crucial question is: can one criterion – e.g. health, disability or youth – prevail over other criteria when regarding the whole system of special protection for vulnerable people?
