Reclassifying a worker who is recognised as having a disability

The Court of Justice has delivered a ruling concerning a maintenance technician recruited by the Belgian railways company to work on railway tracks.
During his traineeship period prior to qualification at the company, he was diagnosed with a heart condition. He was subsequently fitted with a pacemaker, a device that is incompatible with the electromagnetic fields present on railway tracks. As a result, this worker was recognised as having a disability. He was quickly reassigned to a warehouseman’s position, then dismissed before the traineeship came to an end.
As a trainee, does he enjoy the protection granted to workers by Directive 2000/78 of 27 November 2000, establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation? Yes, the Court of Justice replies. This law applies to “a worker undertaking a traineeship following recruitment by his or her employer”, provided that the traineeship period is served “under the conditions of genuine and effective activity as an employed person, for and under the direction of an employer”.
Furthermore, Article 5 of the Directive stipulates that “reasonable accommodation” shall be provided, in order to guarantee compliance with the principle of equal treatment in relation to persons with disabilities. The Court states that where a worker becomes permanently incapable of remaining in his or her job because of the onset of a disability, reassignment to another job may constitute an appropriate measure in the context of “reasonable accommodation”. Admittedly, this provision does not oblige an employer to take measures which would impose a “disproportionate burden” on it, taking account in particular “of the financial costs entailed, the scale and financial resources of the organisation or undertaking and the possibility of obtaining public funding or any other assistance”. Although the Court leaves the national courts to assess whether or not a disproportionate burden exists, it adds that the worker “was reassigned to a warehouseman’s position within the same company”, which would tend to indicate that reassignment to another position was possible.
However, the Court does specify one criterion applicable to this reclassification obligation: “the possibility of assigning a disabled person to another job is only available where there is at least one vacancy that the worker in question is capable of holding” (see CJEU: Case C-485/20, HR Rail SA, 10 February 2022).
(Article published in IR Note 180, 23 February 2022)