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HI All+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + GEM list: Contact the list owner for assistance at [log in to unmask] Anyone can join for free at any time by sending this message to [log in to unmask]: Join GEM Firstname Secondname Include only the text above, without email signature etc. The title of the email doesn’t matter. Send it to [log in to unmask] If you are going on holiday or have an out of office message for some other reason, you can send this message: Set GEM nomail When you get back: Set GEM mail You don’t 'miss' any messages by doing this as they are all available via main GEM list web page as above. Finally, if you need to change your email address, but stay subscribed to GEM, just send your new email address like this: CHANGE GEM [log in to unmask] + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +I’ve been following this thread with interest. I think that the discussion, although to my mind perfectly civilised and professional, has missed a number of key points.1. Manual HandlingThis job requires manual handling skills. Yes, manual handling is a skill, just like using a computer or driving and it is not just a matter of heaving and grunting. If the job requires manual handling skills then it would be reasonable to expect that candidates called for interview would be assessed (with proper supervision and training) on their ability to perform the kind of manual handling tasks that the job entails. This appears to include other physical tasks such as setting up a large gazebo as well as moving stuff about. The employer is responsible for ensuring that staff who have to do manual handling tasks are properly trained and that these tasks are done in accordance with the manual handling regulations published by the HSE.Because manual handling is a competence an employer is justified in using the ability to perform this task, within the parameters defined in the regulations, as a valid selection criterion.2. Reasonable AdjustmentsThe DDA requires that employers make ‘reasonable’ adjustments to accommodate the needs of disabled staff, and consider what reasonable adjustments might need to be put in place to employ a new member of staff with a disability. If a tribunal has to decide if adjustments asked for but denied are ‘reasonable' it will consider both then needs of the disabled employee, and the circumstances of the employer. So a large multi-national company will be expected to do a lot more to accommodate the needs of a disabled employee than a small business would be expected to do. I suspect that the Thackray museum is really quite a small and cash-strapped organisation, and so it may well simply not have the resources to accommodate a person in this role who cannot carry out the manual handling part of it.3. Not all disabilities are visible, and not all disabled people are physically incapable of lifting and shifting.The focus of this discussion seem to have been around the fact that the manual handling requirement looks like disability discrimination. I don’t think that it really does, because there may well be people who are not disabled (and who might be insulted by the suggestion that they are) - perhaps they are just too short and slight to manage the boxes - who might be equally unsuitable for the role. But there may well also be plenty of people who are disabled in some way who would be perfectly capable of doing all the tasks required of this role - consider, for example people with moderate hearing loss or some level of visual impairment (your eyesight can be too bad to allow you to drive but perfectly adequate for doing just about anything else). And then there is the whole spectrum of hidden disabilities to consider…4. Disability and working with historic machinery.The Thackray Museum’s Emergency Museum works out of an old ambulance. I note that this post-holder isn’t required to drive the ambulance, but the person could be. I don’t know anything about the museum’s ambulance but over the years I have driven a fair number of the kind of vehicles that ambulances have been based on. Some of them were really quite horrible things to drive, with heavy steering, awkward handbrakes, difficult gearboxes, heavy pedals and poorly adjustable seats. If you are going to require your staff or volunteers to drive such things anywhere then its important that the drivers have the physical strength and skill required to master these horrible vehicles and manage them safely. The selection process for people to fill these roles must take account of this, and therefore might exclude anyone with a significant physical disability.While it might be possible in some cases to make properly engineered adaptations to the controls to allow a physically disabled person to drive a historic vehicle I wonder whether people would consider this to be a reasonable thing to do given that museums are supposed to preserve and conserve historic artefacts?Richard Ellam
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Becki Morris |