“The fact of being in a situation of disability multiplies by three the risk of discrimination at work”

For people with disabilities, the road to employment is strewn with obstacles, even totally blocked, as Fabienne Jégu, Disability expert advisor to the Defender of Rights (DDD). This independent authority was appointed by the government to ensure the application of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CIDPH) of 2006, ratified by France and entered into force in national law in 2010.

What is your view on the employment situation of people with disabilities?

For almost five years now, disability has been the first ground for referral to the Defender of Rights in matters of discrimination, and employment the first area in which this discrimination is exercised. According to our barometer of the perception of discrimination in employment carried out each year with the International Labor Organization (ILO), being disabled or suffering from chronic diseases triples the risk of discrimination. at work.

The low level of qualification of people with disabilities is the main obstacle to their access to employment. And, when they do manage to get a job, they are most often confined to underqualified positions and encounter obstacles to progress. Around 80% of the referrals we receive concern career development and job retention. Most of these situations raise the question of the effectiveness of reasonable accommodation.

That is to say ?

Since 2005, the law requires all employers, regardless of their workforce, to take adaptation measures on a case-by-case basis to enable people with disabilities to access, keep, exercise or to progress there. If the employer refuses to take these measures without justifying that they constitute a disproportionate burden, there is discrimination. Our referrals reveal that this obligation remains poorly understood by employers and therefore poorly respected.

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We were informed, for example, of the refusal of an employer to respect the recommendations of the occupational physician concerning the work arrangements of a disabled worker. With the consequence, the aggravation of his handicap which led to his incapacity and, in the end, to his dismissal. Labor law obliges employers to reclassify an employee recognized as unfit. However, the employer who dismisses a disabled worker without having mobilized the measures likely to keep him in employment is considered as not having respected his obligation of reclassification. In this case, the dismissal is considered by the judge to be discriminatory, and therefore null.

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What are the other obstacles to employment?

Accessibility is an essential condition for the inclusion of people with disabilities. However, it is still far from being effective in most areas. Thus, the texts relating to the accessibility of work premises have still not been published. In addition, the majority of establishments open to the public (ERP) are still not accessible, and controls and sanctions in the event of non-compliance with obligations are little or not implemented. Transport is also far from being all accessible. And, from now on, it is enough, to be in the rules, to arrange a few stopping points to be in phase with the law.

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In general, France has been lagging far behind in terms of accessibility for many years and, to date, the results remain very worrying. The objectives and deadlines set by successive laws are not respected. Worse, France continues today to build and produce inaccessible goods and services, thus endangering the equal access to fundamental rights of people with disabilities for years to come.

For example, since the ELAN law of 2018, only 20% of new housing must be accessible as soon as it is built, the others simply having to be upgradeable. Moreover, by the government’s own admission, only 16% of the 250 online administrative procedures most used by the French are accessible to date.

The United Nations Committee accuses France of having an overly medical approach to disability and not sufficiently focused on human rights, what does this mean and what are the consequences?

The Convention sets itself the objective of guaranteeing people with disabilities “the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms”. She considers that disability is the result of the interaction between, on the one hand, the person’s disabilities – she cannot walk, because she is paraplegic, for example – and, on the other hand, environmental obstacles. – the absence of elevators in the metro prevents the person from going to work. Environmental barriers, including behavioral barriers, are therefore clearly identified as obstacles that must be acted upon, just like disabilities, to ensure the effective participation of people with disabilities.

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If we are content to provide technical assistance to the person, he will not be able to move independently if his environment remains inaccessible. In France, the definition of disability introduced by the law of 2005 attributes only the deficiencies and incapacities of the person the cause of their activity limitations and their participation restrictions. The consequence of this approach is to act on environmental barriers only in a secondary way, which is inappropriate.

Beyond the obstacles mentioned, how does the Defender of Rights look at public policies in the area of ​​employment and disability?

In France, employment is a major axis of disability policies. A lot of efforts are made, a dynamic is at work. However, the employment situation of people with disabilities remains worrying. Their unemployment rate is twice as high, their duration of unemployment longer, and their rate of return to work is lower. More generally, the absence of homogeneous and reliable data on disability at the national level is obvious. It is regrettable: how to manage well what one does not measure or very badly?

This article is part of a file produced as part of a partnership with Agefiph.

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