NZ ruling - Training Aspie employees is not a safety hazard

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ASPartOfMe
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24 Feb 2018, 6:10 pm

ERA throws out claim training employee with Aspergers a safety concern

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A man's bid to recoup income after resigning because his employers assigned him to train a new employee with Asperger's Syndrome has been denied in employment court.

The Employment Relations Authority ruled car groomer, Daniel O'Flaherty's safety was not put at risk by his employers and he was not "unjustifiably disadvantaged".

O'Flaherty was the manager at an Auckland car grooming service, where he was employed by owner Andrew Simms and overseen by Lester Rogers, the preparation manager.

O'Flaherty took on the responsibility of training new employees for a $3 hourly pay rise shortly after he started in 2015.

He agreed to help train a new employee with Asperger's who was granted name suppression and referred to as ADS in the court documents.

Another car groomer at the business said he was provided with a printed page of information on Asperger's syndrome, but O'Flaherty said in his written evidence, in his written evidence that he did not have "any experience at all with Asperger's Syndrome and did not really know what it was".

O'Flaherty said ADS immediately proved that he was "very difficult to educate and keep focussed". O'Flaherty also said ADS "frequently walked off from the shop floor", the decision stated.

Following an incident with a Mitsubishi Mirage vehicle in September 2016, O'Flaherty told his boss he was no longer prepared to continue training ADS, so ADS, who was still on a trial period at the time, was dismissed.

ADS told the team members he had been "let go" and he was disappointed.

After ADS' employment was terminated, O'Flaherty took two days leave, texting his boss, Lester Rogers that he required a day off for "mental health reasons". O'Flaherty went on to say he believed he was suffering from mental exhaustion.

"I have been here before so I recognised the symptoms of burn out."

Rogers said O'Flaherty had not previously mentioned suffering burn out in the past. O'Flaherty maintains it came up in a hiring discussion with Rogers and Keatley when he discussed why he had closed his owned and operated grooming service in 2001.

A few days later O'Flaherty suffered a panic attack at work, which he said was as a result of his experiences with ADS.

Employment Authority member Eleanor Robinson ruled against O'Flaherty's claim he was "unjustifiably disadvantaged" in being assigned to train ADS.

Robinson said there was no evidence that O'Flaherty had made Andrew Simms aware his training of ADS was affecting his mental health.

She also found O'Flaherty was provided with relevant information about Asperger's prior to agreeing to train ADS and was able to raise issues with Rogers but only raised performance-related issues.


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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


ScarletIbis
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24 Feb 2018, 6:23 pm

That’s... you know what, I can’t even find words to describe that. It’s a shame people can actually be like that... :?


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Dear_one
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25 Feb 2018, 12:30 pm

To me, it sounds as if that guy was as easy to train as a drunk, and people who have to deal with those wind up in Al-Anon. Maybe the trainer expected to be able to handle it 'till he overloaded. There could have been better communication, but the blame falls on whoever tried to put the Aspie to work. This is the machine age - unsuitable workers just get in the way; they'd be easy to support, except the ownership of the machines is concentrating all the wealth.



Mudboy
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25 Feb 2018, 3:57 pm

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JimSpark
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25 Feb 2018, 5:41 pm

Just a guess...O'Flaherty didn't like his job to begin with, and was only going to be a trainer for the $3 extra per hour. When he reached the point where he just wanted to work elsewhere, he and his attorney conjured up an excuse to get him some money on his way out the door because he had to work with someone he didn't like who also had a "label" they thought they could exploit.

O'Flaherty sounds like he's a lousy employee trying to find an excuse to blame someone else for his lousy work skills and attitude. Glad he got nothing out of it, and I hope he never finds work again, and dies of starvation. Screw him.

:twisted:


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