The workplace is one of the areas of life where people with chronic illnesses often face the most discrimination. Their illness may or may not cause permanent disability. If it does not cause permanent disability, it may be disabling from time to time. Either way, people with chronic illnesses often experience discrimination and harassment in the workplace as a result of the disability that results from their illness.
This document explains how people with chronic health conditions can use the disability discrimination laws to enforce their rights in the workplace. Throughout the document, reference is made to disability and disability discrimination. This is necessary because the disability anti-discrimination and workplace laws use these terms. However, the laws also apply to people with chronic illnesses, because the legal definition of disability includes the presence of disease and illness.
Therefore, if you have a chronic illness, you do not need to have an obvious disability in order to be protected by disability anti-discrimination and workplace laws.
Next Section: What is discrimination?