Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/637230
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2016 News 11 MARTINA BORG A proposed legal change in the Employ- ment and Training Services Act could give employers access to information about their employees who have a disability. Employment and Training Corporation chairman Clyde Caruana said the proposal would be discussed and a decision taken fol- lowing consultation in the coming months. Under the current law, drafted in 1990, employers are not permitted to know the identity of employees who are registered with the ETC or with the National Commis- sion Persons with Disability (KNPD) as hav- ing a disability. "The proposal is one of the many proposed changes to the act, which has remained the same for a relatively long time," Caruana told MaltaToday. He explained that under the proposal, em- ployers could request a list of names of em- ployees under their charge who were regis- tered with either the ETC or with KNPD as having a disability. He stressed that this list would not be available prior to the recruit- ment of new employees. "The employees in question will be asked whether they want this data to be issued, and they may refuse to have their names given out," Caruana said, adding that should this measure be accepted, then more stress would be placed on safeguarding these em- ployees from potential discrimination. "Those with a disability are already pro- tected by the Equal Opportunities Act, but further safeguards would probably all be a part of the revised law," he said. It is also worth noting that Malta has al- so signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability "with regard to matters con- cerning all forms of employment, includ- ing conditions of recruitment, hiring and employment, continuance of employment, career advancement and safe and healthy working conditions," and which ultimately gives more purport to these safeguards. Expressing his own opinion, KNPD chair- man Oliver Scicluna said that the disability commission had not yet formulated an offi- cial response. However, he explained that as someone with a disability himself, he would not feel comfortable with such data being made available. "We have already spoken about the issue with ETC and we will be part of the discus- sion until the final decision is taken," he said, urging organisations in the sector to express their opinions. "It's people who run these organisations that can truly speak to defend and empha- sise the rights of people with a disability, as they come in direct contact with these reali- ties," Scicluna added. Discussing the possibility of opting out of giving this data, Scicluna expressed concern about the fact that a reluctance to make the data available might automatically single out persons and risk discrimination against them. Reiterating the fact that he wasn't speaking for all of the commission, Scicluna said that the matter required extensive discussion and consultation. Asked for the reasons behind this propos- al, ETC chairman Clyde Caruana said that many employers had quoted concerns about health and safety issues. "Employees are the responsibility of their employers, so if they have a disability that is potentially dangerous to themselves or to others, employers feel they ought to know about it," he said. However, it would be reasonable to ob- ject, that unless someone's disability af- fects their job performance, then ultimately it shouldn't be anyone's business but their own, whether or not they are registered as having a disability. Caruana said that many might disagree with the change or perhaps even consider it controversial, but ultimately it was a way to reach a compromise, given the resistance to the government's decision to enforce a law that 2% of the workforce of companies em- ploying over 20 people must be people with a disability. The director general of the Malta Employ- ers Association, Joe Farrugia, explained that employers had made the suggestion because they could never really verify whether or not they were fulfilling the quota as required. Asked whether it would be enough to know the number of employees with a dis- ability, Farrugia said that knowing the iden- tity of the people in question was important ultimately "as a source of proof". "Say an employer is taken to court for not observing the quota, for instance," he ex- plained. "How can employers defend them- selves unless they know the identity of the people in question?" Farrugia added that whether a person was registered as having a disability or not, was up to the person in question. "If a person who clearly has a disabil- ity isn't registered as such, then employers might mistakenly think they fulfil the quota when they don't," he said, explaining that the measure would therefore help to bring more clarity to employers. Proposal could be compromise with businesses resisting enforcement of disability quota Employers seek access to information on disabled employees Maltese at work: Three out of four have male boss JAMES DEBONO THE Maltese are the third least likely in the EU to have a female boss, the second most likely to have fixed working hours, the fourth most likely to be directly control- led by bosses and the second least likely to fear losing their job in the next six months. An EU-wide survey also shows that the Maltese are more likely than other Europeans to work longer hours, to breathe in fumes and dust, and work in physically painful positions. But they are among the least scared of losing their jobs. The Maltese, 75% of whom report having a man for a boss, are among the most likely in Europe to have a male as their immediate boss. Only the Cypriots and Greeks are more likely to have a male boss. But surprisingly, in Germany the percentage of respondents report- ing having a female boss is only one point higher than in Malta. The most likely to have a female boss are the Swedes, 45% of whom say that their immediate boss is a woman, followed by Estonians and the Finns (42%). Significantly, while only 15% of Maltese employees report having a woman boss, 40% of women re- port having a woman for a boss. The percentage of female employ- ees reporting a female boss is eight points lower than that in all EU 28 countries. The survey also shows that the Maltese are far more likely than other Europeans to have fixed starting and finishing times at the workplace. Only the Bulgarians are more likely to have fixed times than the Maltese. While only 25% of Maltese do not have fixed times, the percentage rises to 39% in all 28 EU countries. The least likely to have fixed hours at work are the Finns and the Dutch. Maltese workers are the fourth most likely to be dependent on the direct control of a boss dur- ing their work. Only the Cypriots, Hungarians and Bulgarians are more rigidly controlled. While 48% of Maltese workers report that they depend on the direct control of their bosses at work only 13% of Finns, 19% of Swedes and 22% of Dutch workers report the same experience at work. Younger Maltese workers are even more tightly controlled by their bosses. While 55% of under- 35 year olds are dependent on the direct control of bosses, the ma- jority of over-35 year olds are not dependent on their bosses during their work. Women are also more likely to be dependent on their bosses than men. Maltese workers are also more likely to work more than 10 hours in a day at least once a month. While 40% of Maltese workers do so at least once a month, only 18% of Italians and Portuguese work more than 10 hours at least once a month. But the Maltese are also the sec- ond least likely (after the Slovaks) to fear losing their job in the next six months – only 10% of Maltese respondents fear losing their cur- rent job in the next six months, compared to 27% of Slovenes, 26% of Spaniards and 25% of Dutch workers. Despite the introduction of smoking laws, 13% of male Mal- tese workers are still exposed to tobacco smoke for more than a fourth of their working day. Only 3% of female workers are exposed to the same danger. The European Working Con- ditions Survey (EWCS) targeted working people who were ran- domly selected from a statistical sample, comprising a cross-section of society, ranging from 1,000 to 3,300 people in each country. A man's work is always delegated... KNPD chairperson Oliver Scicluna (top) and ETC chairperson Clyde Caruana and MEA director-general Joe Farrugia: both sides are trying to strike a deal over the enforcement of a 1969 law that lays down a mandatory 2% quota for the employment of disabled people in SMEs and large businesses