Act to be equal?
The much-heralded Disability Discrimination Act, which gained royal assent this month, makes it an offence for employers and providers of goods and services to discriminate against people with disabilities.
The new rights will start being enforced in November 1996, and the Government says it expects to deal with 3,000 industrial tribunal cases every year.
The act affects the hospitality sector in two ways, both in terms of employing disabled people and in making sure the same services are available to them as to everyone else.
Employers must now make sure disabled people are considered for employment in the same way as anyone else. Positions must not be refused to them because of their disability.
Providers of services may be judged as discriminatory if they do not offer disabled people the same service available to the general public. They may also be discriminating if the terms of service provided differs from that offered to other people.
The act says if a service provider has a "practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonable" for a disabled person to use the service, then it is the duty of the business to "take steps to change" the practice, policy or procedure.
Building and room design
The design of buildings and rooms as well as access to premises may need alteration to comply with the new law. Businesses must try to either remove the feature causing difficulty, change it, or find an alternative method of providing the service to the disabled person.
The act also places a duty on service providers to try to make available any extra service such as a sign-language interpreter or audio tapes, if this would mean that disabled people could use the facility.
In the hospitality industry, an example of discrimination could be not providing to disabled people the same access to facilities that others enjoy. This includes access to and use of: means of communication; information services; accommodation; and entertainment, refreshment and recreation facilities.
Similar rules apply to employers if a disabled employee is at a disadvantage because of the working environment or other employment details. It is the employer's duty to modify the workplace so that the person is no longer at a disadvantage. Change may be in terms of bringing in extra equipment, providing training or improving accessibility.
The act also states that employers should be flexible about working hours if disabled employees need time for rehabilitation or treatment.
A code of practice is being drafted to help make issues covered by the act more comprehensible to employers. Until this is published next year, the Agenda For Action, produced by Employers Forum on Disability, highlights 10 points employers should consider within their businesses:
Equal opportunities policy and procedures statement
Staff training and disability awareness
The working environment
Recruitment
Career development
Retention, re-training and re-deployment
Training and work experience
Disabled people in the wider community
Involvement of disabled people
Monitoring performance
These are simply guidelines, but are worth a closer look because if a disabled person proves he has been discriminated against, he can take his complaint to an industrial tribunal or county court.
But, unlike both the Race Relations Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, there is no commission to investigate and help individuals take complaints to court.
The onus is on employers and businesses to change before legal proceedings begin. But there are safety nets. Employers can defend themselves by showing they had good reason for not complying with the new law.
For example, businesses can consider whether they have the resources, financial or otherwise, to make changes that will remove discrimination. It is important to note that throughout the act, where duties are imposed on employers to take steps, it states "such steps as it is reasonable, in all the circumstances of the case".
Legal proceedings
The act is not designed to place hardship on businesses. But legal proceedings lead to bad publicity and poor public relations. They may also result in an order for compensation with no limit to be made and a recommendation for changes which will remove the reason for discrimination.
In the long run this will be commercially beneficial. There are over six million disabled people in the UK, many of them with money to spend. If hospitality businesses can adapt, they will attract this market as well as its friends and family.
