Today’s European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling gives carers significant new protection at work but it stops well short of giving them an automatic right to demand flexible working arrangements.

Under UK law, anyone with a child under six or a disabled child under 18 can request flexible working arrangements. Managers are obliged to consider these requests but can legitimately refuse them on business grounds.

The same right already applies to someone who is the primary carer for a disabled parent, spouse, relative or someone who lives at the same address. Today’s ruling does not change this and does not compel employers to allow flexible working in circumstances where they previously could have legitimately refused.

Alex Lock, an employment partner at law firm Beachcroft, said: “This is an important ruling. But it doesn’t give carers the right to barge into their boss’s office and start demanding wholesale changes to their working conditions.”

Today’s decision kicks in when someone is treated less favourably because they are a carer.

Jane Moorman, head of employment law at Howard Kennedy, uses the example of a female worker whose husband is disabled in an accident. As primary carer for a disabled person, the woman has always had the right to request flexible working and her employer has always been obliged to consider that request.

What has now changed is that the woman is protected if she is subsequently treated less favourably because she is associated with a disabled person.

Suppose, the woman applies for and is given two days off a week to care for her husband.

While it has always been discriminatory for worker to say about a disabled colleague: “I don’t want to work with her because she is always at the hospital instead of the office,” it is now also discriminatory to say, “I don’t want to work with her because since her husband came off that motorbike she is always at home looking after him instead of being in the office.”

The person associated with the disabled person as carer, is therefore allowed the same workplace protection as if they were themselves disabled, including unlimited damages if they win a discrimination case at an employment tribunal.

This is an important change and will undoubtedly make life easier for millions of people juggling work with their responsibilities, but it does not radically improve their chances of being allowed flexible working.

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