by Peter Hunter, Legal Officer

UNISON member Elizabeth Simpson struck a major blow for the rights of deaf workers with a recent decision of the Scottish Employment Appeal tribunal, that employers must now consider whether deaf awareness training for other employees would help prevent a deaf worker experiencing discrimination.

Speaking at the UNISON National Disabled Members Conference in Glasgow last month, General Secretary Dave Prentis said: "UNISON has always campaigned against disability discrimination and the ineffective law introduced in 1995. The expansion and improvement of the law in October is welcome but this case shows how UNISON and other unions must continue to press for improved protection for all disabled people.

"This council has lost the skill and experience of a UNISON member who would have offered important support to deaf children and other pupils in Longridge Primary school."

Elizabeth was a classroom assistant at West Lothian Council when she was deafened by a viral infection. Although she battled on without assistance for several years the isolation and exclusion she experienced at work became intolerable and she had an extended period of absence from work. When referred to occupational health with a view to dismissal on grounds of capability, her employer was told to make reasonable adjustments to support Elizabeth at work.

Deaf awareness training was identified as an option but the initial session was a disaster as her colleagues took offence at the suggestion that they lacked awareness. No further efforts were made.

The specialist worker from the council's Hearing Impairment team told the tribunal the attitude from Elizabeth's colleagues was such that the council could not place a deaf child in that School.

After applying for several vacant posts, and unable to return to her original workplace, Elizabeth resigned. Elizabeth said: "Becoming deaf was a frightening, depressing and life changing event for me, but the anxiety and depression would not have been as extreme or long lasting if conditions at work had been better.

"It was not the shock of being deaf that made me ill. I managed to continue working for four years before succumbing to anxiety and depression. It was the council's inability to retain me in the normal operation of school life, or some other job, that made my position impossible.

"All I needed was colleagues who knew how to avoid excluding me. The training isn't rocket science, but awareness doesn't come naturally to hearing people. They tend to assume that everyone hears them when they speak."

A tribunal had found that it was "stretching the provisions of the Act to suggest [deaf awareness training] is a reasonable adjustment which an employer should make. And that "…employers cannot force employees to become aware of issues of equality if they do not wish to participate."

However, the EAT agreed with UNISON that such training was a reasonable adjustment and should have been organised by the employer. A new tribunal will now decide whether it was the absence of deaf awareness training that forced Elizabeth to resign from the council.

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