You've not started so you're finished...

In Andrew Logue v Argyl & Bute Council the Glasgow Tribunal has found that a blind social worker who never actually started work because his bosses kept putting off his start date was discriminated against on grounds of his disability. The cause of the delay was the Council's need to check that the support worker needed to enable Mr Logue to work, was suitable. There is public funding for adjustments made to help disabled people work and I expect that this support worker post was so funded. At the meeting where his support worker was to be interviewed there was some form of row about hours and Mr Logue "stormed out". The Council then assumed he no longer wanted the job and wrote to him regretting this. On the face of the report its hard to see what the discrimination was- however it is a useful reminder that discrimination law kicks in some time before employment commences and that even dismissal law does not require an employee to actually start employment. Above all though it is a warning about "interpreting" employee behaviour as meaning anything beneficial to an employer. The safest course is to check if they have in fact resigned.