Globalisation: The Effect on Disabled Workers

Even though attitudes are gradually changing, progress on integrating workers with disabilities and respecting their rights could soon come to a standstill. The problem is the fierce competition between companies in the age of globalization, as well as some governments’ drive to cut social spending and boost labour market participation. Despite a whole battery of national legislation, many employers still avoid recruiting people with disabilities.

According to a British trade union study carried out in connection with a parliamentary commission, employers show various types of apprehension about such hiring: uncertainty about skills and needs, uncertainty about the cost of any adjustments needed to change the workplace, fear of disabled workers’ impact on company performance, the assumption that customers and fellow workers would take a negative view of disabled employees, and the feeling that the costs involved would be too high and would harm the enterprise. Such prejudices are reinforced these days by the fear of losing or never gaining the holy grail of competitiveness, are often at the root of discrimination against differently-abled job seekers. There globalization and the competition it creates has presented many obstacles for differently-abled workers wanting to enter the workplace

Luc Demaret
Editor-in-Chief
Labour Education
Disability – the human cost of discrimination