European Union Instruments which Encourage the Promotion of the Access to Education, Training and Lifelong Learning for People with Disabilities

Council Recommendation on the Employment of Disabled People in the Community (86/379/EEC)

I. HEREBY RECOMMENDS MEMBER STATES:

1. To take all appropriate measures to promote fair opportunities for disabled people in the field of employment and vocational training, including initial training and employment as well as rehabilitation and resettlement. The principle of fair opportunity for disabled people should be applied in respect of:
   1. access to employment and vocational training, whether normal or special, including guidance, placement and follow-up services;
   2. retention in that employment or vocational training and protection from unfair dismissal;
   3. opportunities for promotion and in-service training.
2. To this end, to continue and, if necessary, intensify and re-examine their policies to help disabled people, where appropriate after consulting disabled people's organizations and both sides of industry; such policies should take account of measures and specific activities implemented in the other Member States which have proved effective and worthwhile.
   These policies should provide in particular for:
   1. Elimination of negative discrimination by:
      1. reviewing laws, regulations and administrative provisions to ensure that they are not contrary to the principle of fair opportunity for disabled people;
      2. taking appropriate measures to avoid as far as possible dismissals linked to a disability;
      3. limiting exceptions to the principle of equal treatment in access to training or employment to the cases justified on the ground of a specific incompatibility between a particular activity forming part of a job or course of training and a particular disability; if necessary, it should be possible to have this incompatibility confirmed by a medical certificate; any such exception should be reviewed periodically in order to establish whether it continues to be justified;
      4. seeking to ensure that any tests required for access to vocational training courses and any tests required during or at the end of such courses are designed in such a way that candidates with disabilities are not thereby disadvantaged;
      5. seeking to ensure that disabled people can go before the competent bodies to establish their rights and can receive the necessary assistance to do so in accordance with national law and practice.
   2. Positive action for disabled people, including:
      1. bearing in mind differences in sectors and enterprises, the fixing by Member States, where appropriate and after consultation of disabled people's organization and both sides of industry, of realistic percentage targets for the employment of disabled people in public or private enterprises having a minimum number of employees; such a minimum might be set at between 15 and 50. Measures should also be adopted for making these targets public and achieving them;
      2. the making available, in each Member State, of a guide or code of good practice for the employment of disabled people, incorporating positive measures already adopted in the Member State concerned and corresponding in spirit with the provisions of this Recommendation; the Annex comprises a guideline framework for such a guide or code, setting out examples of positive action; the guide or code of good practice should be circulated as widely as possible and refer to the public and private sectors; it should describe clearly the contribution which the recipients of the guide or code can and should make in putting into practice the national policy on disabled people; it should include information and advice on the support that is available from public services;
      3. provision whereby the Member States encourage the public and private enterprises to take all appropriate measures for the employment of disabled people which correspond in spirit with the guide or code of good practice; Member States should establish the means for making these policies, and the annual progress made in their implementation, known to the public, according to existing procedures for disseminating information in the social field;
      4. provision whereby the employer and the rehabilitation services cooperate in the resettlement, with the same enterprise as far as possible, of any employee who becomes disabled.
3. To report to the Commission on the measures they have taken to implement this Recommendation with a view to enabling the Commission to present the report referred to in II.3.

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