This article analyzes the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) decision C-485/2020, dated February 10th 2022, on the issue of whether an employer is legally obliged to relocate a disabled employee in another position within the organization after being declared unfit for the job such employee was performing. The case involves a Belgian worker employed as a trainee in the maintenance of railway tracks who, after being diagnosed with a cardiac disease, was implanted a pacemaker which would make it dangerous for her to continue with her job. As a result, the worker was dismissed and filed lawsuit against the employer citing violation of both Belgian employment laws and EU Directive 2000/78, which obliges the employer to provide reasonable accommodation for disabled workers to access their employment provided that an undue burden is not imposed on the employer. The court in charge of the case raised a preliminary question to the ECJ as to whether the term “reasonable accommodation” includes the obligation of the employer to relocate the disabled worker to a new position. The ECJ first examines the language of Directive 2000/78 in light of the UN convention and concludes that the list of measures provided for in the Directive is non-exhaustive. As such, if not an excessive burden for the employer, the Directive requires the latter to relocate the disabled employee to a different position matching her skills and qualifications. The author indicates that this is a landmark decision in the sense that (i) acknowledges that a worker not passing her probation period must be relocated to another position that matches her skill and qualifications, and (ii) that the reasonable accommodation obligation on the employer must be interpreted in a broad sense.
https://www.boe.es/biblioteca_juridica/anuarios_derecho/articulo.php?id=ANU-L-2022-00000001682
