LUXEMBOURG (CN) — When companies make accommodations for employees who become disabled, those in temporary training programs should get the same opportunity, the EU’s top court ruled Thursday.
The case was referred to the European Court of Justice by the Conseil d’État, the Belgian Council of State, after an unnamed individual training to be a railway technician complained his termination was illegal.
State-owned Infrabel had hired the worker in 2016. The company builds and maintains the Belgian rail network, and it is common for Infrabel to hire recent graduates and train them on the job. The following year, however, the worker was diagnosed with a heart condition that required him to have a pacemaker.
HR Rail, the company that employs all Belgian railway staff, ultimately found that he was disabled and permanently unable to perform his job. The device used to regulate heart function was sensitive to the electromagnetic fields emitted by railway tracks.
In a 2018 letter, the man was informed that it was HR Rail policy to terminate trainees whose disabilities prevented them from doing their jobs. “The traineeship of a member of staff who is declared totally and permanently unfit shall be terminated where he or she is no longer able to carry out the duties attaching to his or her grade,” the company wrote. HR Rail defended this policy in court, arguing it wasn’t possible to provide any accommodations to the man.
The Luxembourg-based Third Chamber disagreed, concluding that trainees qualified as employees under the 2000 Equality Framework Directive, the EU regulation covering workplace discrimination. The rules require that an employee who becomes disabled to be "assigned to another position for which he or she has the necessary competence, capability and availability,” the five-judge panel wrote, adding that regulations provide for a “broad definition” of what qualifies as reasonable.
It did note, however, that such accommodation can be expected only if it doesn’t create a "disproportionate burden" to the employer. According to the ruling, employers can consider the financial cost of accommodations, the scale of the firm and what public assistance might be available.
The court has frequently sided with disabled workers over the issue of accommodation. Last year, it found that employers couldn’t discriminate between workers with disabilities in a case where a Polish psychological was refused a monthly allowance because she had become disabled before the payment was created. In 2019, it sided with a former prison guard who had been fired after losing their hearing. In that case, the court said that employers are required to investigate whether employees could perform their duties even with their disabilities.
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