Access to Employment by People with Disabilities. A Critical Reading of Italian Legal Provisions

The core of the paper consists of a critical examination of Italy’s current statutory legislation dealing the right to work of people with disabilities, and in particular whether it is consistent with the principle of reasonable accommodation introduced in Article 5 of Council Directive 2000/78/EC and later taken up by the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We argue that the Italian legislator reveals a conception of the organization as a system that is to a large extent predetermined, intangible, and that disabled individuals must essentially demonstrate that they are capable of adapting to this system’s needs. As long as this conception persists, it is unlikely that Italy will go beyond paying lip service to the principle of reasonable accommodation and put it into actual practice.