Disability and reasonable accommodation at work: Importation and uses of a legal category in France and Belgium.

Summary The notion of reasonable accommodation refers to any attempt, in a society, to accommodate or adjust to the needs of an individual arising from his or her membership in a minority, while respecting the equal treatment of all human beings and fundamental freedoms. Focusing on accommodations for workers with disabilities, this study examines the emergence of this category in law, as well as the uses made of it by social actors in the field of work. This report examines the legislation in force, the case law and the doctrine. It shows the conditions of importation of this legal category in France and in Belgium and its articulation with other legislations that frame labor relations (obligation of reclassification, well-being at work, etc.). It then presents the results of an unpublished survey of professionals - trade unionists, lawyers and agents of public anti-discrimination organizations -, employers and workers with disabilities, and highlights the way this legal category is mobilized, circumvented or avoided. The union and professional mobilizations, as well as the experiences of disability at work, are part of different configurations of professional relations and administrative and legal categorizations of disability in France and Belgium. More generally, this research shows the effects produced by the introduction of this legal obligation. The actors in the world of work make little reference to legislation on reasonable accommodation, the binding power of these norms being counterbalanced by other imperatives and logics: managerial discourse, labour law, etc. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the right to reasonable accommodation is ineffective, nor that it has no effect. Discourses change, employers and workers seize upon existing legal frameworks, integrate them into their discourse and sometimes into their practices, give them meaning, and thus contribute to reshaping the contours of legal norms.