Is this statement discriminatory?

Haych

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:

We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

Is this indirectly discriminatory to able bodied persons who are not explicitly offered the same guarantee?

Troglodyte

IANAL but I don't think so. Being able bodied isn't a "protected characteristic" - being disabled is.

fretmeister

Doubt it.

I read it as a guarantee that the disabled won't be rejected on the grounds of their disability, but that they will be for any other factor that is actually relevant to the job. Just like the non-disabled.

JezWynd

Local Govt - guaranteed to follow every rule in the book but still manage to give the post to the manager's wife's best mate.

Haych

Fair enough.  It was a genuine question.  I wasn't seeking affirmation one way or the other, just opinion on how it reads to other people.

To me it does seem to suggest that if you're disabled and have the necessary requirements you will be guaranteed an invite for an interview whereas if you're not disabled, but still meet the necessary requirements the same guarantee isn't made.

Hence the question.  

EricTheWeary

There are exceptions under the Equality Act 2010 and this is one of them. Wether you consider it discrimination or just re-balancing the books it is certainly lawful.
Occupational requirements are the big exceptions under the Act - it might be reasonable to only employ women to work in a women’s domestic violence shelter for example.

As said by @fretmeister any candidate with a disability still has to meet the requirements of the job although, yes, in some circumstances they would have an interview that an able bodied person might not. There is nothing suggesting that a person with disabilities will be employed in preference to someone without. 

munckee

If they have a maximum number of interviews available then it could be discrimination if you are able bodied and meet all the interview criteria and can't get a spot because they are all filled.  It wouldn't be unlawful though.

The chances of them all being filled by disabled people who meet all the criteria must be slim to none I would say if they even had a limit in practice.

My view is there is no such thing as positive discrimination, just discrimination, its not positive if you are in the group discriminated against.

digitalscream

Haych said:

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:

We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

Is this indirectly discriminatory to able bodied persons who are not explicitly offered the same guarantee?

It's not discriminatory in isolation, as long as they also have a statement to guarantee to interview non-disabled folk who also meet the essential requirements for the post.

The reality is that non-disabled folk who meet the essential requirements won't all be interviewed in all likelihood, particularly if it's for a relatively low-level or unskilled job.

In my opinion (for the former) and experience (for the latter), of course.

digitalscream

Actually, there's an implicit discrimination throughout this thread - able-bodied is not the opposite of disabled, because there are plenty of recognised non-physical disabilities.

That's where it gets murky. There are lots of jobs which ostensibly exclude people with mental health problems - almost anything in the care industry, for example. However, that sort of role is in such demand that care organisations (even those run by the government) actively avoid screening for them in any detail because they can't afford to be turning candidates away.

Discrimination for safety vs short-term pragmatism and hope. Yay for selective application of the law

skunkwerx

JezWynd said:

Local Govt - guaranteed to follow every rule in the book but still manage to give the post to the manager's wife's best mate.

Exactly that from my recent experiences. 

Haych

digitalscream said:

Actually, there's an implicit discrimination throughout this thread - able-bodied is not the opposite of disabled, because there are plenty of recognised non-physical disabilities.

Yes, I was aware that might come up but thought able bodied sounded better than non-disabled in context and was the only reason I used the phrase I did.

Back on topic; I agree that the sentiment behind the statement is likely meant well but seems badly worded to me.  

Words to the effect of qualified disabled applicants not being refused interview on the basis of their disability, which is what I think the original statement is attempting to cover, would have been much better, in my humble opinion of course.

57Deluxe

Haych said:

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:

We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

Is this indirectly discriminatory to able bodied persons who are not explicitly offered the same guarantee?

We guarantee to interview applicants of all abilities who meet the essential requirements for the post.

VimFuego

57Deluxe said:

Haych said:

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:

We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

Is this indirectly discriminatory to able bodied persons who are not explicitly offered the same guarantee?

We guarantee to interview applicants of all abilities who meet the essential requirements for the post.

depending on the role, this could be a really bad idea. What if you have 1000 people who all meet the essential requirements. You'd spend the next 5 years just interviewing (though in truth you'd probably just spend that time dodging all the people trying to fulfill the contract the HR dept had taken out on you. 

EricTheWeary

The Equality Act (2010) defines a disabled person as someone with a 'physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities'.

There is no such thing as a disability register ( although I think you can be registered blind and there may be other such categories) so it’s self definition. You could record yourself as Disabled on any job application, an interviewer can only ask about your disability in respect of reasonable adjustments so if you counted an ingrowing toe nail or needing to wear reading glasses as a disability you could. Although being interviewed on the basis of meeting minimum requirements ( and exaggerating the effects of your ingrowing toe nail) probably isn’t the best prospective for getting a job. 

digitalscream

EricTheWeary said:

The Equality Act (2010) defines a disabled person as someone with a 'physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities'.

There is no such thing as a disability register ( although I think you can be registered blind and there may be other such categories) so it’s self definition. You could record yourself as Disabled on any job application, an interviewer can only ask about your disability in respect of reasonable adjustments so if you counted an ingrowing toe nail or needing to wear reading glasses as a disability you could. Although being interviewed on the basis of meeting minimum requirements ( and exaggerating the effects of your ingrowing toe nail) probably isn’t the best prospective for getting a job. 

Here's an interesting one - disability doesn't have to be permanent, just long-term.

So...that toenail might've been a debilitating problem for a few years (including the point when you applied for the job), but magically healed the day before the interview.

Straight to the front of the queue

EricTheWeary

digitalscream said:

EricTheWeary said:

The Equality Act (2010) defines a disabled person as someone with a 'physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities'.

There is no such thing as a disability register ( although I think you can be registered blind and there may be other such categories) so it’s self definition. You could record yourself as Disabled on any job application, an interviewer can only ask about your disability in respect of reasonable adjustments so if you counted an ingrowing toe nail or needing to wear reading glasses as a disability you could. Although being interviewed on the basis of meeting minimum requirements ( and exaggerating the effects of your ingrowing toe nail) probably isn’t the best prospective for getting a job. 

Here's an interesting one - disability doesn't have to be permanent, just long-term.

So...that toenail might've been a debilitating problem for a few years (including the point when you applied for the job), but magically healed the day before the interview.

Straight to the front of the queue

As far as I can see true. Presumably there are a limited number of people who want to manipulate this bit of law in order to get interviews for jobs for which they meet the minimum requirements but otherwise aren't capable of demonstrating enough knowledge of on an application form/ CV to otherwise get shortlisted. 
Presumably it also means people with disabilities are getting interviews for posts which they almost certainly won't get and that must be pretty frustrating. 
I guess it's about the spirit of the law in an attempt to give a fairer playing field to people with significant disabilities.  

Funkfingers

Haych said:

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:
We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

The sentence is an exercise in arse-covering.

It is inevitable that some applicants, with the relevant qualifications and experience, might imagine that they were not invited to interview because of something in their medical history. 

EricTheWeary said:

digitalscream said:

Straight to the front of the queue

Presumably, there are a limited number of people who want to manipulate this bit of law in order to get interviews for jobs for which they meet the minimum requirements but otherwise aren't capable of demonstrating enough knowledge of on an application form/ CV to otherwise get shortlisted. 

Presumably it also means people with disabilities are getting interviews for posts which they almost certainly won't get and that must be pretty frustrating. 

I guess it's about the spirit of the law in an attempt to give a fairer playing field to people with significant disabilities.  

EricTheWeary

Funkfingers said:

Haych said:

On a job application form for a position with local government the following statement is made:
We guarantee to interview disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements for the post.

The sentence is an exercise in arse-covering.

It is inevitable that some applicants, with the relevant qualifications and experience, might imagine that they were not invited to interview because of something in their medical history. 

EricTheWeary said:

digitalscream said:

Straight to the front of the queue

Presumably, there are a limited number of people who want to manipulate this bit of law in order to get interviews for jobs for which they meet the minimum requirements but otherwise aren't capable of demonstrating enough knowledge of on an application form/ CV to otherwise get shortlisted. 

Presumably it also means people with disabilities are getting interviews for posts which they almost certainly won't get and that must be pretty frustrating. 

I guess it's about the spirit of the law in an attempt to give a fairer playing field to people with significant disabilities.  

I’d say that being Tarzan would probably have being able bodied as an occupational requirement and therefore Mr Spiggot would not meet the minimum requirements and would not get the interview. If not then that’s a fairly clear example of discrimination as the interview focuses entirely on his disability with no reference to making reasonable adjustments. It falls on wether having two legs is incidental to the role of Tarzan - it wouldn’t be legal to insist on a white able bodied male to play him in a radio play for example.

mart

It looks like a clear example of "positive action" which is legal following the 2010 act. Naively I would have said that it is discriminatory, and an example of positive discrimination, but it looks as if those terms have now been given precise meanings that basically boil down to: if it's legal then it's positive action but if it's illegal it's (positive) discrimination. So in that sense, technically, it's not "discrimination" because it's lawful.

It seems to be like the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. To the layman the words evasion and avoidance are synonymous, but they've been given precise meanings that put them on opposite sides of the law.

digitalscream

mart said:

It looks like a clear example of "positive action" which is legal following the 2010 act. Naively I would have said that it is discriminatory, and an example of positive discrimination, but it looks as if those terms have now been given precise meanings that basically boil down to: if it's legal then it's positive action but if it's illegal it's (positive) discrimination. So in that sense, technically, it's not "discrimination" because it's lawful.

It seems to be like the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. To the layman the words evasion and avoidance are synonymous, but they've been given precise meanings that put them on opposite sides of the law.

That's a circular argument, though.

"Why is discrimination illegal?"
"Because if such action is illegal, it's discrimination"

That's why the legalisation of positive action/discrimination/whatever is poor legislation - it leads to the legality of the same action being different depending on which group the subject belongs to.

mart

Yeah, there is definitely a risk of that. I would hope the legislation is drafted more precisely so as to avoid that risk.

Unfortunately lots of the buffoons that run HR departments couldn't spot a logical argument if it punched them on the nose and would have no hope or interest in spotting a logical failure like the circular argument you suggest. So we'll have HR fools telling us all sorts of nonsensical idiocy.

Plus ça change.