Commission finds discrimination, orders reinstatement of autistic employee dismissed by Skopje IT firm

A Skopje-based IT company has been found by the Commission for Prevention and Protection from Discrimination (CPPD) to have discriminated against and victimised an employee on the autism spectrum, the Commission concluded after a comprehensive investigation. The decision says the behaviour — emotional and verbal abuse by several colleagues — began in 2021 and continued until the employee filed a complaint.

Findings and recommended remedy

The CPPD determined that the company committed serious perception-based discrimination on grounds of health in the workplace and also engaged in victimisation. The employee was dismissed after lodging his complaint, and the Commission concluded that some of the measures taken by the employer following the complaint amounted to victimisation.

According to the employee's submission, the incidents numbered in the hundreds and formed a long-term pattern of psychological abuse and a workplace culture that tolerated mobbing. He described himself as a person on the autism spectrum — diagnosed with Asperger syndrome — without verbal or intellectual impairment, which he views as the underlying reason the harassment lasted and management failed to address it.

The complaint includes recent examples of mistreatment. While performing an annual inventory of fixed assets in one office on 14 January, a task he had done for three years and for which he had previously received praise and bonuses, a colleague told him she was irritated because he requested the same items every year. The colleague also made repeated sarcastic remarks.

He further reported that "She told me: 'You know how much I feel like slamming that into your nose!'" — a remark the victim says the same colleague made in April 2023 when she saw him in a corridor holding a folder. Before filing to the Commission, the employee also says two coworkers spoke in the canteen about him being "abnormal" after a June reaction at work which the victim links to chronic psychological harassment.

The CPPD noted that the victim reported incidents to the employer, and management acknowledged neither written complaints nor wrongdoing by colleagues. The victim later produced evidence of reports dating back to 2022. The company told the Commission the dismissal followed a legal redundancy and optimisation, but the Employment Agency records showed that only the complainant had been dismissed under that optimisation.

As a remedy, the Commission recommended the company reinstate the dismissed employee to an open-ended employment contract within 30 days of receiving the opinion, and to introduce effective internal anti-discrimination mechanisms and internal acts to ensure equal treatment — also to be reported back to the Commission within the same deadline. If the company fails to comply, the CPPD said it will refer the case to the competent court; a favourable court decision could strengthen the employee's further litigation domestically and potentially in Strasbourg.

The complaint also describes how a colleague who is a legal specialist proposed workplace training in 2025 after incidents against the autistic colleague, but the company rejected the idea. The victim had even offered to pay for such training himself, yet he was reportedly told informally to adapt and to conceal that he is autistic, and warned not to "exaggerate with persistence" because it would anger the general director.

Photo: SDK.MK)