A senior IBM employee in the UK who has been on sick leave since 2008 sued his employer for discrimination since he didn’t get a pay rise. Ian Clifford, who works for computing giant IBM, has reportedly been ill for the previous 15 years. His LinkedIn page states that he has been ‘medically retired’ since 2013.
IBM employee asserted, however, that he was the victim of “disability discrimination” because his pay had not increased over the fifteen years he had been out of the workforce. The IBM health plan guarantees the IT specialist’s salary until age 65 and pays him more than 54,000 pounds (about Rs 55,30,556) annually.
But, the employee argued that the health plan was ”not generous enough” because his salary will wither over time due to inflation.
Notably, Mr. Clifford first took sick holidays in September 2008, and the circumstances remained unchanged until he filed a grievance in 2013. In response to his complaint, IBM provided him with a “compromise agreement” in which he was added to the company’s disability plan rather than being fired. A person who is unable to work under the plan is not fired; instead, they are still considered employees and are under “no obligation to work.”
An employee on the plan has a ‘right’ until recovery, retirement, or death if earlier, to be paid 75% of agreed earnings. In his case, his agreed salary was 72,037 pounds, meaning from 2013 he would be paid 54,028 pounds per year after 25% was deducted. The plan was fixed in place for more than 30 years until he reached retirement age at 65.
In February 2022, he took IBM to an employment tribunal on claims of disability discrimination. He said, “The point of the plan was to give security to employees not able to work – that was not achieved if payments were forever frozen.”
However, things didn’t go according to his plan, as an employment tribunal dismissed his claims, with a judge telling him he has been given a “very substantial benefit” and “favorable treatment”.
Judge Housego said, “That active employee may get pay rises, but inactive employees do not, is a difference, but is not, in my judgment, a detriment caused by something arising from disability. The complaint is in fact that the benefit of being an inactive employee on the plan is not generous enough because the payments have been at a fixed level since April 6, 2013, now 10 years, and may remain so.
‘The claim is that the absence of an increase in salary is disability discrimination because it is less favorable treatment than afforded those not disabled. This contention is not sustainable because only the disabled can benefit from the plan. It is not disability discrimination that the plan is not even more generous. Even if the value of the £50,000 a year halved over 30 years, it is still a very substantial benefit.”
”It is more favorable treatment, not less,” he concluded.
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