HIV positive waiter awarded €3,000 in discrimination case

[Jim Allen]

Some news closer to home.

Basically guy was 2 days into a job and let go and he was awarded 3k as the employer failed to correctly evaluate and, if needed make reasonable adjustments to the working conditions   

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/hiv-positive-waiter-awarded-3000-after-hotel-refused-to-facilitate-shorter-working-day-916669.html

A waiter who is HIV positive and lasted only three days in his new job has been awarded €3,000 in a discrimination case.

This follows the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ordering a hotel to pay the €3,000 to the waiter after finding that it discriminated against the man on the grounds of his disability.

WRC Adjudication Officer Orla Jones made the finding over the hotel’s failure to make proper accommodation for the man’s disability.

The man commenced work at the hotel on February 26, 2018, and had resigned his post two days later, on February 28, over the hotel’s refusal to allow the man to work shorter hours.

In the case, the man alleges that after he requested to work shorter hours as he found the work very tiring due to his medical condition, his boss, a restaurant manager, told him: “those are the hours and we cannot make exceptions”.

At the meeting with the restaurant manager on February 28, the man said that he told his boss at that point that he was HIV positive in the hope that his employer would discuss reasonable adjustments which could be made to the work schedule to enable him to do the job.

The man commenced work at the hotel on February 26, 2018, and had not disclosed his condition prior to getting the job.

The man told the WRC that he didn’t tell his new employer about being HIV positive as he was too embarrassed.

HIV is a sexually transmitted disease and symptoms include fatigue, fever, weight loss, and shingles.

The man stated that the work pattern meant that he would struggle to take his medication at the required times.

The man made the complaint about the long hours and his difficulties in dealing with the roster because of his disability and finding the hours too tiring.

The waiter told his boss that he felt that he had to resign on February 28.

Ms Jones, of the WRC, said she was satisfied that once the employer was aware that the reason for resigning was due to the man’s disability and due to the tiredness he was experiencing, it was at that point obliged to make further enquiries into the extent of the disability and to ascertain whether he might be able to do the job if he was afforded reasonable accommodation for his disability.