Disability rights
Employment: Access to jobs and protection against discrimination
Discrimination in the workplace: Problems with your employer
In this part of the chapter, we explain how New Zealand’s anti-discrimination laws protect you from being treated unfairly, and also require employers to take steps to accommodate your impairment, so that you have equal access to work and employment.
The laws protecting disabled people from discrimination can require people and businesses to do things to ensure “reasonable accommodation” so that you have the same access as other people.
We’ll explain how this works, including how you can use the Human Rights Act to enforce your rights, and we give a real-life example of a workplace discrimination case that went to court.
“Reasonable accommodations”: Your right to adjustments that give you equal access
When disability discrimination cases have gone to the courts in New Zealand, the judges have generally understood that discrimination against disabled people presents different issues compared to other types of discrimination.
For example, if a landlord wants to refuse their flat to any gay couples, the law says this is illegal. In this case, the landlord has to ignore the fact that a potential tenant is gay, so that they have equal treatment. By contrast, you can’t get rid of discrimination against disabled people by ignoring their impairment and treating them exactly the same as other people. Real equality here requires making adjustments (“reasonable accommodations”) in particular cases so that a disabled person has genuinely equal access. The adjustments needed will always depend on the particular person, their particular impairment, and the particular context – for example, if it’s a work issue, the particular kind of work they do.
Case: Smith v Air New Zealand [2011] NZCA 20
Reasonable accommodation is a key idea in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and our Human Rights Act says that part of the purpose of the Act is to protect human rights in New Zealand in line with international agreements like this UN Disability Convention. The words “reasonable accommodation” themselves aren’t used in the Human Rights Act, but the courts have recognised that the idea of reasonable accommodation is part of the Act. The Act sets out some situations where reasonable accommodation is required.
Taking your case to the courts
Two stages to a successful claim for workplace discrimination
First, you have to show that it looks like there was discrimination. If you get past that first stage, your employer will need to show that they couldn’t reasonably accommodate you – or put another way, that it would be unreasonable for them to have to make the changes that would be needed to: accommodate you for:
- you to do the work, or
- your employer to reduce a risk of harm to you or others to a usual level.
Stage 1: Does it look like there was discrimination here?
In the first stage, you have to show that on a first impression you’ve been treated differently from other people that don’t have your impairment. You just need to show that, at first sight, your case has the basic ingredients of discrimination (what lawyers call “prima facie” discrimination).
For example, if you were fired from your job after a period of mental illness, you’ll have to show the basic stuff, namely that:
- you did get fired
- mental illness comes within the definition of “disability” in the Human Rights Act (it does)
- you were fired because of the mental illness – it doesn’t have to be the only reason or even the main reason, so long as it was a real factor in the decision to fire you.
Stage 2: Can the employer prove you’re asking for “unreasonable” changes?
In the second stage, the issue of reasonable accommodation comes into play, and your employer gets the chance to argue that the changes needed for you to do your job (or reduce the risk of harm) would have been unreasonable.
Case: Smith v Air New Zealand [2011] NZCA 20
Your employer has to show that for you to do your job, it would take the kind of special arrangements that would be unreasonable to expect an employer to make. This is the “reasonable accommodation” point. There are two different exceptions that the employer can use to show that the necessary accommodations are “unreasonable”:
- Unreasonable special facilities or services: Your employer could prove that you’d need special facilities or services (like special equipment or special assistance) to do your job, and that it would be unreasonable to expect the employer to provide those. However, your employer can’t use this exception if they could just get another employee to do the particular tasks that are in issue, without any unreasonable disruptions.
- Risk: Your employer could show that because of your impairment you’d present an “unreasonable risk” of harm to yourself or others. An unreasonable risk means more than just a minor risk – though a low risk of serious harm may be enough. Your employer has to prove that it would cause unreasonable disruption to reduce this risk to usual levels. But again, the employer can’t use this exception if another employee could do the tasks.
Different claims – similar laws and processes
If you’ve been discriminated against in your workplace, you have two options for enforcing your rights:
- taking a “personal grievance” case to the Employment Relations Authority (see: “Personal grievance”), or
- complaining to the Human Rights Commission under the human rights laws, which could result in your case going to the Human Rights Review Tribunal (see: “Going to the Human Rights Commission”).
You should get some advice on which option would be the better option in your case. Whichever option you take, the law is basically the same, and there’ll be two main stages to how the decision-maker approaches and decides the case as outlined above. For advice on which option to use, contact your nearest Community Law Centre.
So what does “reasonable” mean?
Case: Smith v Air New Zealand Ltd [2011] NZCA 20
What is “reasonable” and “unreasonable” will always depend on your particular case – your particular impairment and characteristics, your particular job and workplace.
The judge will consider the benefits and costs of making the changes. But if your employer claims it will cost too much to make the changes, they have to provide real evidence of this. Also, the courts have warned against placing too low a value on accommodating disabled people.
Who has to prove what: understanding how the burden of proof shifts
When you take a claim to the courts, there are rules about what you have to prove, and who has to prove it. These rules can affect your likelihood of success. Above, we covered the two stages of a claim. In stage 1, you have to show that the basic ingredients for discrimination exist.
In stage 2, if the employer wants to say that they’re covered by one of the exceptions, they have to prove, for example, that it would be “unreasonable” to make adjustments to the workplace.
So there’s an important difference not just in what has to be proved but who has to prove it. Importantly, the discrimination laws say that the burden shifts from you to your employer between stages 1 and 2. They have to show that an exception applies – you don’t have to show that an exception doesn’t apply.
Example of a successful discrimination claim in court
In this case study, we’ll take you through a real workplace discrimination case that went to the Employment Relations Authority (“ERA”). The ERA is the first-level tribunal that deals with employment law problems – for more information, see: “Resolving employment problems”). We’ll explain how the ERA approached the case and what the worker had to show at each key stage to prove their claim.
What was the case about?
The person at the centre of this case had been working as an Emergency Department (“ED”) nurse for several years, including doing rostered night shifts. Her doctor gave her a medical certificate saying she should no longer do night shifts because of her mental health condition. She wanted to keep working in the ED but the hospital shifted her into other nursing positions.
The nurse took a “personal grievance” against the employer to the ERA. She argued that the hospital should have accommodated her impairment and allowed her to keep being an ED nurse without any night shifts.
The first stage: Does it look like there was discrimination?
The ERA noted that the nurse’s medical condition came within the meaning of “disability,” as the definition of “disability” in the Human Rights Act includes “psychiatric illness”. Also, the ERA decided that:
- she’d suffered some kind of loss or harm (a “detriment”) – she’d lost wages, suffered uncertainty and anxiety, had experienced loss of job satisfaction, and had been withdrawn from a training course
- the hospital made its decision because of her disability.
The final issue to decide at this first stage was if she had been treated worse than other workers – but the question is, which other workers should she be compared to? This group, which is often called the “comparator group”, can be difficult to determine. The courts have said that it is important not to take a restrictive, technical approach to this task to reflect the policy of the legislation.
The comparison question: Who should you be compared with?
The ERA questioned whether the nurse should be compared to:
- all other ED nurses; or
- only to those other ED nurses (real or imagined) who like her couldn’t work night shifts, but for a different reason.
The ERA said it had to be the first group – in other words, the “comparator group” had to be all other ED nurses. The ERA decided this because of an important Supreme Court case which said that judges had to remember that the purpose of the disability protections in the Human Rights Act is to provide equal access and to consider what would be “reasonable accommodation”.
This ERA decision shows that reasonable accommodation wouldn’t be achieved by comparing you with other (hypothetical) workers who also can’t do certain tasks or tasks at certain times, but for different reasons. The effect would be that employers could get away with not providing reasonable accommodation for your impairment simply by showing that they are inflexible with any worker, disabled or not, who for some reason can’t do the particular tasks that you can’t do.
The second stage: Has the employer made reasonable accommodations?
There are two specific reasons why accommodations might not be reasonable to expect of an employer:
- if they have to provide unreasonable special facilities or services, and
- if the impairment will create too big of a risk of harm.
The first exception wasn’t relevant in this case, but the second one was. The issue the risk to herself and others, if the nurse did night shifts with her condition.
The ERA found that there would be a risk of harm to herself and others if the nurse worked night shifts, and that it was not reasonable for the employer to take this risk. The ERA then considered whether the employer could take reasonable measures to reduce this risk to a usual level, without unreasonable disruption. The ERA noted that several of the nurse’s colleagues had offered to do her night shifts, and that a group of others also supported the hospital making changes to accommodate her disability.
The ERA decided it would be reasonable for others to agree to cover her night shift and for her not to work nights. Not only would these measures be reasonable, they would reduce the risk of harm to a usual level and they wouldn’t cause unreasonable disruption. The hospital could have made some adjustments, but they didn’t. So the nurse’s rights to be free from discrimination on the ground of her disability were breached.
What was the outcome of the case?
The ED nurse won her case. She no longer wanted to go back to her old job with the hospital – instead she claimed for the pay she’d lost by being taken off her ED hours, plus compensation for her distress caused by how her employer had treated her. The ERA awarded her most of what she claimed in these two areas.
