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Do employers have a right to discriminate against color-blindness?

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Connecteur:
It may or may not be illegal (depending on the country) to discriminate against color-blindness, but I doubt many employers would be comfortable with an employee who can't read resistors or trace colored wires.  I suspect (as with age-discrimination) other reasons are cited for passing over a potential employee in the hiring process.

jpanhalt:
You are asking a question at law without indicating which country's laws.   The answer is simple: it depends.

John

JacobPilsen:
Imagine 64 year old coalminer.

Connecteur:

--- Quote from: blueskull on December 07, 2016, 05:17:37 pm ---If if doesn't hinder the job, then I would assume it is not really legal, at least not ethical to discriminate color blind people.
If the job is to assemble PCB, or to repair PCB that really requires reading color codes, then I would say it makes sense to discriminate color blind people.
The same thing to age discrimination. Not hiring a 50-year old in a supermarket is not legal, at least not ethical, but not hiring a 50-year old in a SWAT team makes perfect sense.

--- End quote ---
I wasn't very clear whether I meant "right" or "legal right."  Regardless of laws, do employers have a right?

CJay:
In the UK.

I don't think any law would make an employer take someone who was at risk of not being able to do a job safely or endangering colleagues/clients etc.

As an employer you have to make reasonable adjustments to enable someone to do a job and you're not allowed to discriminate on grounds of disability at interview/advertisement stage but giving all candidates a practical test to assess their abilities and knowledge is perfectly reasonable.

If there is no way to make those reasonable adjustments then it's simply not possible to employ that person and while it could be tricky if they were litigous they'd have a hard time proving it unfair in court, that's what you (should) have insurance for.

To have the employer obligated to make those reasonable adjustments an employee would have to declare any disabilities they want adjustments made for at time of employment.

In the UK armed forces it would be an immediate rejection if you are colour blind.

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