Is this discrimination?

Post Reply New Topic

Last autumn I had a medical diagnosis that I have Asperger’s. I am very high functioning, I have a very high IQ so I’ve always been able to work and pass as ‘normal’ as I always thought I was. In December, I asked to see my occupational health nurse to discuss the diagnosis and if I should disclose this to HR.
However, HR would not let me make an appointment with the nurse until I told them or my manager why I wanted the appointment. I was very distressed but eventually I had a meeting with my manager and discussed it with her. I opened up about my condition.
She said it is important that my employer knows about my condition because they might be able to make my work better, easier for me.
So I said it was alright for my manager to discuss the situation with HR. She asked me to write a list of jobs and skills I like and ones I find more difficult (Like meeting new people, being in crowded areas etc. The biggest problem I have is socially).
It was suggested that I might find working in another department better for me. (I am a scientist. I have worked as a chemist for almost 30 years and been with my present employer for 6 and a half years. I have always been given good appraisal reviews. I have an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in chemistry and postgraduate degree in history.)
I eventually was offered a ‘mini-secondment’ in the analytical chemistry team, which I was told was unofficial to last from May to end August of this year. The week before I began working in the analytical team I had a meeting with my manager and the team leader to discuss training arrangements. During the meeting, we discussed my medical condition and the things I might find more difficult. I was assured that this would not be a problem.
So, I began the seconding and on the first day I was put into a situation I was uncomfortable with, I was asked to accompany the team leader to a meeting with reps about buying new equipment.
I was not given any training plan during my time. Even though, I had asked for so there was no direction about what I was expected to do. The team leader left me without any guidance or work for most of the days. When I asked, him he said he was too busy to train me. The other team members ignored me when I asked for them to train me. They all spoke to me slowly like I suddenly had learning difficulties.
It was then that I began to speak to one of the other team members and she told me that the team leader had called a meeting the day before I was due to start working with them and told them I was autistic and its’ classed as a disability so they have to help me out by giving me a job. She said they felt resentful that the leader was ‘doing a favour for a mate’ by giving me a job.
I was very upset and when I confronted the team leader he didn’t deny that he told them, He said I had given my permission for him to tell them. Which wasn’t true. He was very aggressive towards me.
The training became non-existent from then on. I was accused of being rude when I disagreed with the team leading in a meeting. I tried to ask again why I wasn’t being trained and the team leader said ‘he’d tried train me’ and implied I had learning difficulties. I went back to my manager and explained what had happened that I wasn’t doing any work in the department because I wasn’t being taught anything. I was sent to HR to discuss the problem with them. I told them everything that was happening. I was told that there wasn’t a vacancy in the analytical team and shouldn’t have been promised one.
I was then told that my current job that I had now returned to was going to be made redundant and I would have to be found another position in the company. My colleague who also does the same job is being kept on. She is younger than me, has no experience and has only worked in the team for 2 years.
HR have told me that there is nothing ‘suitable’ anywhere else in the company. My manager said I have only 3 months’ work left (That was in August). I have been told to get my CV up to date and ‘probably’ look for work outside.
Sorry for the long explanation but I thought it necessary to explain everything
I guess my question is – is this disability discrimination? If so is there anything I can do about it. Even though I am now determined to leave the company before I am made redundant.

At least you've learned to keep your diagnosis to yourself, but you really need professional advice for this one, it's not particularly straight-forward. It would be discrimination if you were treated in a way that you wouldn't have been treated if you weren't disabled. Things like no training....I've worked in lots of companies that promise training (they promise you lots of things at the interview stage) but when you start the job all those promises go and there is no training. However if no-one else gets the training then it's not discrimination. If people *do* get training in that specific situation (hard to prove) but you were not given it because you were disabled and they thought you couldn't learn then that probably would be discrimination.

The redundancy issue is tricky too, I think they need to explain to you why you were chosen for redundancy and not the other person and you are more experienced and have a better performance record you can challenge the decision, or if the decision to make you redundant is because of disability then that's not a fair reason....but of course they're not going to admit that even if it is the case.

If I was you I'd go to the CAB for advice, maybe pay to talk to a solicitor that specialises in these things as it's far from black and white.

Unfortunately, i am not familiar with the laws in the United Kingdom.
This is the best I can offer.

https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your- ... on-at-work

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Sometimes It's good to discuss things with people who understand.
I do feel that I was just 'normal' before I disclosed then I changed over night into the token ret*d.

I spoke to my occupational health nurse last week and she said 'you don't look...I mean you don't...'present' as autistic'.

There is no hope left

I do the audits of a lot of Law Centres and there should be one near you. Please ask them their opinion as they will have solicitors trained in this. If they think you have a good chance of winning, you may be eligible for legal aid, if not they may take the case to make case law and will request costs. It doesn't hurt to ask, and pretty well everyone in all the Centres I've been to are really nice and understanding.

It sounds like you have lots of experience under your belt and yes you were facing discrimination and probably bullying. If I were you, I would also grab some samples of your work, put it into work portfolio because that's what going to land you into a new job. You also want to make sure you go network with people outside of HR because they will land you into your next position. Keeping your autism to yourself is wise and if people think that you are "Weird" well purple tunafish to on them.

As for the people who were talking slow and looking at autism as a "Disability", what do they know about you? Again, have they seen your samples of your work? That may have helped your team lead see you have some cool skills that he could have used.

I am actually in the same situation. My current boss refuses to teach me anything because she thinks I have a learning disability. The gotspe is that she has autistic children studying at a university and an autistic husband.

When she gives me a very simple task, I want to know more about the background of the task so that I can build up information and make a system in my head. She considers that as a proof of a learning disability. Fortunately she is my boss for a few months, and after that the situation will change. I wonder what I will tell my future boss (that will be after her, that is in August this year). This future boss wants to have a talk with me (and other colleagues) in the coming few weeks (before April or May this year). I will tell him that I want to make real advances and am willing to learn everything that is needed. I will tell him: "Please look at what I want and what I realistically can do based on my skills. Please teach me, so that I can be really useful."

It is all orchenstrated by her boss who was my previous boss. The point is that there must be a learning disorder to get some financial support from the government. For a learning disorder an assumption is anough, not a proof. For ASD there is a proof and the boss felt the liberty to add anything that is advatageous for him. He doesn't give a thing if this is a disadvantage to me or not.

I am thinking to let me tested on a learning disorder and get the autism diagnosis destroyed because it is damaging me. There is only disadvantages of my diagnosis because it is very attractive to bosses to abuse it at my costs.

Outside work I can manage a real lot and autism is no longer a burden. Autism itself is not. The diagnosis surely is. I want to get rid of it.

Chronos,

I live in the Netherlands, so I don't know whether this is fraud in the Netherlands. I remember a documentary in Dutch where a group home recieves funding. This funding is based on the sum of the severity of the handicaps of the inhabitants. One of the inhabitant has mild autism. When there is an evaluation talk between the manager, that inhabitant and someone of the government, he is told to behave severely autistic, and not show mild autistic behaviour or normal behaviour (which he does the rest of the time). The more severely autistic behaviour he fakes, the more funding the group home gets.

Immediately I must think of my situation. My current and my previous boss are frauding. I am curious whether my future boss will fraud as well.

I have looked up some lawsuits in the Netherlands. They are public but the names of the parties in the lawsuit are always censored so that privacy of parties are respected.

There are cases of abuse of supported jobs. That is when the employee gets no chance to improve itself with the excuse that the handicap is too severe, and that there would be a learning disorder.

If I read the verdicts of the lawsuits correctly, and if the judge see that there is an abuse, he may end the job contract. The employee will be fired by the judge instead of the company. So... if I read this correctly, it means that I risk being fired when I try to set up a lawsuit.

At this moment rechtspraak.nl (the Dutch website with verdicts) is offline, and I may have to wait till Monday.

Actually, there were more people with supported jobs. After a few years, they get a normal job, but I don't. The reason to make a difference is that they are not autistic, but I am.