Employers face jail for disability breaches

Employers who fail to recruit disabled workers as established by law could face up to three months in prison, in line with the Persons With Disability Act.

Though this tough sanction has never been enforced, a government spokesman said yesterday there were no plans to repeal it from the law enacted in 1969.

A court last week rejected an application for an injunction, which was filed by the Malta Employers’ Association, over the enforcement of a provision on the recruitment of disabled workers.

By law, at least two per cent of the workforce in companies having 20 or more people must be listed in an Employment Training Corporation register containing names of people with a disability.

This was done after defaulting employers started being fined. The proceeds from the fines are being channelled to the new Lino Spiteri Foundation which aims to boost the participation rate of disabled workers.

Article 29 of the law explicitly lays down that any breach could result in “a fine not exceeding €233 or to imprisonment not exceeding three months or to both such fine and imprisonment”.

MEA president Arthur Muscat deemed this provision “outrageous and disrespectful” and called on the...