Reasonable Accommodation In The Modern Workplace

More and more the modern workplace faces challenges of diversity and employability. There is an increasingly insistent need to match workforce diversity, or workers' own characteristics and choices, with employers' organizational and business requirements. In this context, the notion of reasonable accommodation inevitably arises. Concepts such as 'adaptability' and 'employability' not only require workers to adapt to new labour market circumstances but are also directed towards employers' duties to accommodate work and the workplace to the worker's situation. This book is the first study to analyse, at a global scale, how employment discrimination law gives shape to an accommodated workplace in three main areas of interest: age, disability, and religion/belief. Sixteen prominent labour and employment law scholars offer in-depth perspectives from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Russia, Israel, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Australia. Each report fully integrates relevant legislation, case law, and legal doctrine and follows the same structure to allow easy comparisons across jurisdictions. Attention is also given to the roles of European Union law and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Issues and topics covered include the following: - the scope of 'accommodation'; - 'reasonable' defined; - recognized business requirements that may override the duty to accommodate; - when employers' neutrality policies to avoid accusations of discrimination may constitute indirect discrimination; - use of integration or re-integration strategies to accommodate disabled/incapable workers; - use of 'exit gateways' that enable employers to avoid liability in cases of disability discrimination; - when employers must take into account workers' family lives; and - when an obligation to reclassify a worker exists. These articles were originally presented as papers at the 2015 meeting of the International Association of Labour Law Journals hosted by the Institute for Labour Law of the University of Leuven. Ultimately the book makes clear that reasonable accommodation cannot be narrowed down to a formal anti-discrimination perspective but requires an integrative logic that can grow in a broader labour law context. As a compelling analysis of whether the idea of reasonable accommodation is winning ground in labour law in today's world, this book will prove of immeasurable value to labour and employment lawyers and judges, as well as to corporate counsel and academics in the field.

This volume examines questions related to the prevention, compensation, and accommodation of work disabilities. It focuses on disabilities arising out of workplace activity.

This treatise is a detailed article-by-article examination of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Each article of the CRPD contains a methodical analysis of the preparatory works, followed by an exhaustive examination of the contents of each article based on case law and concluding observations from the CRPD Committee, judgments from national and international courts and tribunals, pertinent UN and other reports, the key literature on the article under review. The volume features commentary from a broad range of scholars across a variety of disciplines in order to provide a comprehensive study of the legal, psychological, education, sociological, and other aspects of the CPRD. This encyclopaedic commentary on the CRPD effectively covers all the issues arising from international disability law and practice, and will be an ideal resource for all working in the field.

Market volatility and uncertainty have put welfare and social security policies back centre stage and point up the need for closer links with employment policy. The inability of existing income support systems to respond to the increasing fragmentation of people's working careers, the needs of people in difficulty, and the spread of various forms of poverty calls for well-coordinated and efficient responses. This volume highlights the best practices in the various regions of the world in the contexts of international and EU labour law, industrial relations, and social security. Authoritative reports by leading scholars of labour law and social security – originally presented at the twenty-second World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law (ISLSSL) held in Turin in September 2018 – cover the following research themes in depth: – informal workers; – migrant workers; – global trade and labour; – organization, productivity, and well-being at work; – transnational collective agreements; – new forms of social security; and – the role of the State and industrial relations. In its insistence that, despite the radical changes in the world of work and business brought about by globalization and digital technologies, the decisions of institutions and public and private actors can lead to a more coherent system of international economic and social governance, this timely volume shows the way forward. Practitioners, policymakers, and scholars in the relevant fields will bene_ t immeasurably from its expert analyses and recommendations.

The right to privacy is a fundamental right. Along with the related right to personal data protection, it has come to take a central place in contemporary employment relations and shows significant relevance for the future of work. This thoroughly researched volume, which offers insightful essays by leading European academics and policymakers in labour and employment law, is the first to present a thoroughly up-to-date Europe-wide survey and analysis of the intensive and growing interaction of workplace relations systems with developments in privacy law. With abundant reference to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and the work of the International Labour Organisation, the book proceeds as a series of country chapters, each by a recognised expert in a specific jurisdiction. Legal comparison is based on a questionnaire circulated to the contributors in advance. Each country chapter addresses the national legal weight of such issues and topics as the following: interaction of privacy and data protection law; legitimacy, purpose limitation, and data minimisation; transparency; role of consent; artificial intelligence and automated decision-making; health-related data, including biometrics and psychological testing; monitoring and surveillance; and use of social media. A detailed introductory overview begins the volume. The research for this book is based on a dynamic methodology, founded in scientific desk research and expert networking. Recognising that the need for further guidance for privacy at work has been demonstrated by various European and international bodies, this book delivers a signal contribution to the field for social partners, practitioners, policymakers, scholars, and all other stakeholders working at the crossroads of privacy, data protection, and labour law.

A consensus has developed in workplace studies around the concept of ‘well-being at work’ in an awareness that such apparently distinct aspects as health and safety, discrimination, labour market integration, and work-life balance converge in the workplace and are best treated as one complex phenomenon. This important book offers twelve contributions by distinguished international scholars from a range of disciplinary domains, providing an in-depth analysis of ongoing changes in the world of work and their impact on personal well-being. The contributors place specific workplace experiences in a comparative perspective, examining policy and regulatory initiatives and judicial rulings at national, regional, and international levels. The case studies are drawn from Italy, France, the United States, Russia, and developing countries. The essays examine recent legal developments in such topical issues as: – atypical and non-standard work; – child-care leave; – company-level welfare provisions; – disability; – harassment; – low-wage workers and employment benefits; – misperception discrimination; – public policy in care services; – unemployment and mental health; and – work/family conciliation policies. Providing a detailed overview of recent developments in policy and jurisprudence in a comparative perspective regarding discrimination, work-life balance, and workers’ integration into the labour market – as well as a guide to best practices in promoting well-being at work – this book will prove indispensable to labour and employment law practitioners, as well as to work organization, occupational medicine, mental health, and human resources professionals.

The term ‘work-life balance’ refers to the relationship between paid work in all of its various forms and personal life, which includes family but is not limited to it. In addition, gender permeates every aspect of this relationship. This volume brings together a wide range of perspectives from a number of different disciplines, presenting research ndings and their implications for policy at all levels (national, sectoral, enterprise, workplace). Collectively, the contributors seek to close the gap between research and policy with the intent of building a better work-life balance regime for workers across a variety of personal circumstances, needs, and preferences. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: – differences and similarities between men and women and particularly between mothers and fathers in their work choices; – ‘third shift’ work (work at home at night or during weekends); – effect of the extent to which employers perceive management of this process to be a ‘burden’; – employers’ exploitation of the psychological interconnection between masculinity and breadwinning; – organisational culture that is more available for supervisors than for rank and le workers; – weak enforcement mechanisms and token penalties for non-compliance by employers; – trade unions as the best hope for precarious workers to improve work-life balance; – crowd-work (on-demand performance of tasks by persons selected remotely through online platforms from a large pool of potential and generic workers); – an example of how to use work-life balance insights to evaluate the law; – collective self-scheduling; – employers’ duty to accommodate; and – nancial hardship as a serious threat to work-life balance. As it has been shown clearly that work-life con ict is associated with negative health outcomes, exacerbates gender inequalities, and many other concerns, this unusually rich collection of essays will resonate particularly with concerned lawyers and legal academics who ask what work-life balance literature has to offer and how law should respond.