Even Builders Should Be Exempt from the Obligation to Employ Persons with Disabilities

Last week in ‘Pravda,’ we wrote about the employment of persons with disabilities, specifically that the state has mandated companies with more than 20 employees to hire at least one person with a disability, which is certainly a humane goal to help these individuals. However, while imposing the obligation for companies to find such a person or pay penalties, the state has elegantly relieved itself of that obligation. There is also a problem for construction companies that are not exempt from this rule, so I would like to say something about that.

I will just remind you from the previous ‘Pravda’ that the issue of employing persons with disabilities is (not) resolved by the Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities and the Regulation on Determining Quotas for the Employment of Persons with Disabilities. This means that entrepreneurs with more than 20 employees (with some exceptions prescribed) are required to employ a certain number of persons with disabilities in appropriate jobs and under appropriate working conditions, so that they make up at least three percent of the company. Specifically, for every 20 employees, one should be a person with a disability, and an employer who employs 50 workers is obliged to hire two such individuals, etc.

To Dismiss the Director or the Secretary?

In the aforementioned exceptions, which are also defined by the mentioned regulations, the construction activity is missing. Namely, the exceptions from the obligations of quota employment of persons with disabilities apply to the representations of foreign persons, foreign diplomatic and consular representations, integrative workshops, and protective workshops. In addition to them, these obligations are also exempt for companies in the textile, clothing, leather, wood, and furniture production sectors, as well as newly established companies within 24 months from the date of registration in the relevant register, or from the date of establishment according to a special regulation. But there are no builders in sight.

I remember a conversation from a few years ago with an entrepreneur engaged in specialized construction work. At that time, he received a bill from the Ministry of Finance to pay a monthly fee because among about 30 workers, he did not have an employed person with a disability. He paid the fine then. But what if the medical examination regulation, he wondered at the time, prevents companies from hiring such a person, and that is the case in his situation because, as he explained, his company (and still does) deals with special works in construction, and it often happened (before the labor shortage occurred in Croatia) that people who came to apply for jobs appeared to be healthy.

But when they are sent for a medical examination, it turns out that such people cannot work at heights because they have problems with blood pressure, sugar, vision, or if they are overweight, they could injure their knees at work, and those who are underweight cannot work at heights… So what now? ‘I am criminally responsible if I let a person with such health issues work, and God forbid something happens to him. Therefore, I cannot employ such people, let alone persons with disabilities. In my company, all employees are in the field except for me and the secretary. This practically means that I would have to dismiss myself or the secretary and bring in a person with a disability to manage the company or to be my secretary,’ he bitterly told me at the time.

Builders Have No Choice

In the new calculation for not employing just one person with a disability, a fee of 168 euros per month is paid, which means that this construction entrepreneur will pay the state a penalty of 2016 euros this year as well. It is not, he says, a lot of money, but along with other parafiscal levies, it adds up. But the worst part is that he has to pay only for something he objectively cannot fulfill, meaning he cannot choose whether to employ a person with a disability or pay fines.

But it is not only construction entrepreneurs who do specialized work that are affected, but all other construction entrepreneurs as well. I remember when I was a student, I used to work in construction, and since I am terribly afraid of heights, I was once taken off a scaffold so I wouldn’t get dizzy, otherwise, there was a danger that I would confirm Newton’s law of gravity. If it is like that with me, how will persons with disabilities work in any construction company that has more than 20 employees? Therefore, it is time to finally add the construction sector to the list of exceptions.

POST SCRIPTUM

However, it is also prescribed that an employer who believes that they cannot employ a person with a disability for a specific job due to special working conditions and should be exempt from the total number of jobs based on which the quota is determined, is obliged to seek consent from the Institute for Expertise, Professional Rehabilitation, and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, along with a previously obtained opinion from the HZJZ. But that is too much paperwork, along with the cost of time and money. Therefore, it is better for builders to be included in the exceptions.