Termination for HIV infection lawful

Verdict: Termination due to HIV infection is in the opinion of the Labor Court Berlin no discrimination

05/08/2011

An HIV-infected person was terminated at the end of the probationary period at a pharmaceutical company. On the other hand, the employee complained, but lost before the Labor Court Berlin. The German Aids-Hilfe showed incomprehension to the court decision.

Termination Aids?
A man from Berlin was terminated due to an infection with the HI virus by a pharmaceutical company. At the drug company, the plaintiff had worked as a chemical-technical assistant. Against the dismissal, the person concerned defended himself and now failed before the Labor Court Berlin. The dismissal of the employer is compatible with the law, the Labor Court announced in a statement on Friday. Because the dismissal protection law can not be applied in this case, because the plaintiff was terminated before the end of the half-year employment, as a spokesman for the court argued. In addition, the man had been hired by the pharmaceutical company on probation. In court, the man had argued that the termination was not justified in the matter. In addition, the termination is a discrimination against AIDS victims.

From the verdict
The pharmaceutical manufacturer would have been terminated the employee without a labor law justification of the workplace. Because only the employer decides whether the employee will continue to be employed after the probationary period. Therefore, the termination was not arbitrary and the reasoning of the defense comprehensible. Therefore, the termination of the employment relationship "can not be checked for substantive justification". If the company had terminated the claimant at the end of the six-month probation period due to the HIV infection, the termination would not legally have existed. Here is not the infection with the AIDS virus crucial, but the probationary period, the court said. Discrimination on the grounds of disability would also not be objective. Because an infection with the AIDS virus cause no impairment of earning capacity today. Therefore AIDS should not be recognized as a hindrance in the legal sense.

Aids-Hilfe-Verband protests against the verdict
The German Aids help showed incomprehension about the verdict. "People with HIV must be reliably protected against discrimination in working life," said the board of the charitable organization Winfried Holz in Berlin. Aids should fundamentally not be grounds for cancellation. Even in the negotiated case was at no time a risk of infection for colleagues and customers. If companies have questions about the HIV virus, they could seek help and support from the German AIDS Aid. The verdict can be challenged in an appeal to the Landesarbeitsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg. (File reference district court Berlin: 17 Ca 1102/11)

Also read:
AIDS: No fate with real antibodies?
China: clinics deny Aids patients
UN warns against rapid spread of AIDS
AIDS: SI virus is considered a precursor to HIV
Why some people do not get AIDS despite HIV

Picture: Pauline