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I think I am being discriminated against at work?

C

Catsymoo

Well-Known Member
Messages
301
Location
Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Having diabetes
Hey guys,

Need a bit of advice here. I'll keep this as short as I can. I work for a company where I am on the phone so we have ''states'' to put ourselves in such as ''active'', ''lunch'' etc. I work 9-5 style shifts, and we get a 1 hour lunch break. They recently introduced 2 extra paid 15 minute breaks, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon to help reduce people's ''personal'' time.

They seem to be expecting ''personal'' time to now be 0 for everybody, but I use the odd 5 minutes here and there to test my sugars, calculate my insulin, change needles etc, you know how it goes. Before the breaks, I used to use about 20 minutes personal time per day for managing my diabetes, toilet breaks and grabbing drinks etc.

I got grumbled at for my personal time in my appraisal on Monday and it is now being escalated to Occupational Health to help support me, but I really don't know what they can do. It's not like I am taking the cake or anything, I have greatly reduced my personal time but it has still been 32 minutes over the course of the month, and work doesn't seem to comprehend that diabetics might need an extra 5 minutes some days (it's not even that if you divide 32 minutes by days in the month on average).

Am I being unreasonable here? I try to utilize my extra paid breaks, but if I don't feel great I need to test/inject/treat hypo, it doesn't matter if that happens in my break or not, I need to sort it! And I pee more often. I had a hypo on Monday and spent 7-8 minutes in personal time treating it, and I got grumbled at/questioned about it.
 

I don't think you're being unreasonable but as I diabetic, I would say that wouldn't I?

I think employers are obliged to treat us as having a disability and make reasonable allowances. None of us (diabetics) can guarantee with 100% accuracy when we might need to take a few minutes to swallow some glucose or check our levels, even if we are lucky enough to have pretty tight control.
 
I’m by no means an expert but your employer is duty bound to consider reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabilities (type 1 counts) under the equality act.

I’d suggest a conversation with HR to consider how this could be done - sounds like you don’t need any more than the 30 minutes allowed in the new breaks, but that you’d prefer them to be split into smaller chunks across the day? Sounds reasonable to me.
 
Catsymoo said:
Thanks guys, I think splitting the 15 minute breaks into smaller chunks that I can just take when I need them seems reasonable. I can't see them arguing with that and that is a really good idea.
Click to expand...
Perhaps the meeting with occupational health is the opportunity for the reasonable adjustments to be formally reported to your manager? You are making compromises already, but don't over compromise early!

They have a responsibility under the equality act to make reasonable adjustments and as a manager, I would be looking to OH or HR to support me if I didn't know the condition

So maybe see what the outcome of that meeting is?
 
Catsymoo said:
Thanks guys, I think splitting the 15 minute breaks into smaller chunks that I can just take when I need them seems reasonable. I can't see them arguing with that and that is a really good idea.
Click to expand...

I would say that the 'breaks' EVERYBODY gets are neither here nor there in your circumstances, THEY don't have a condition that comes under the Disability act. You require your HR to make reasonable adjustments above and beyond any ordinary work rules. That means them building in adjustments that allow you to do whatever is necessary (within reason) to manage your condition in the workplace, they cannot restrict you to specific times because diabetes, (hypos) do not follow the 'rules'. Of course it is our own responsibility to make sure we have everything to hand at work, that we predict as much as possible when we might go low and take a quick snack to avoid it, to take our insulin when required and all the rest. I definitely don't advocate any taking the you know what. You sound a reasonable person. At the meeting make sure everything is recorded, write down what YOU think is a reasonable solution beforehand (ie, 'extra' short breaks as & when required to test your levels in between meals or when feeling off). When it's all written up into a proper risk assessment it's harder for them to say no to a reasonable request and if they do, then it's all in writing for independent review. Don't be bullied, in the old days people taking cigarette breaks were treated better!). x
 

Hi,

Had any of these grumbles affected what is expected regarding productivity? If the answer is no.
There technically shouldn't be an issue.
 
Catsymoo said:
Thanks guys, I think splitting the 15 minute breaks into smaller chunks that I can just take when I need them seems reasonable. I can't see them arguing with that and that is a really good idea.
Click to expand...
I am glad you are seeing OH because that seems to be an attempt to help you do the job whilst managing your condition. I do think that you should get breaks as well as the time you need to manage the diabetes so I'd ask for that in a reasonable way e.g. explain it simply and calmly given that it is unlikely that the OH guys will live with type 1 diabetes. Don't be defensive but do assert your right to check blood sugars before meals and if you feel you are going high/low.
I do think that if you are having diabetic type time out a lot that it would be worth looking if there are any problems you can solve to reduce this so that you could then legitimately say that you are trying to minmse your time outs e.g. looking into getting a pump or a libre if you are and if that would help obviously!
It is worth being honest if there are problems because if you don't mention these when asked, your company will have more grounds to discipline you 'if you not mention now something you later come to relay on in court' etc. etc. but it does sound as if they are doing the right thing so far and I hope you have a productive chat with them.
 
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