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The status of the people with disabilities can be summarized as marginalisation and exclusion from the mainstream of the society. It is accepted that the process of exclusion of people with disabilities is grounded in time and history. Demographic, economic, legislative data, humanistic reasons and historical evaluation of disability indicate that employment is the most vital item for the participation of people with disabilities in social life. The status of people with disabilities related with employment can be summarized with the terms / unemployment or underemployment, discrimination, lack of satisfaction and advancement in work, loss of job and time pressure at work etc. Intensified competition and flexibility in labour market, lack of physical access, lack of information in an accessible format about job, inadequate training, incompetent personal qualifications and work experience, insufficient benefit and support of welfare systems, employers&rsquo / unwillingness to hire people with disabilities and to make adaptations, type and severity of disability, relatively low educational level of people with disabilities etc can be indicated as reasons for unemployment or underemployment of people with disabilities. Beside these, problems of employment have a close connection to the problems of workplace accommodations. Varieties of barriers in built and workplace environment increase the exclusion of persons with disabilities in the social employment environment. Space as an instrument for reproducing and sustaining social practices must not be perceived only with technical specifications. Space becomes the means of social mechanisms while keeping people with disabilities either &lsquo / in&rsquo / or &lsquo / out&rsquo / of the society. In other words, workplaces play an important role while maintaining either spatial isolation / marginalisation or inclusion of people with disabilities in the labour market. Although many people with disabilities share a common experience in relation to the labour market people with disabilities are very heterogeneous. Their experiences of employment are variable and exhibit a wide range of different skills, aptitudes and aspirations as with the remainder of the population. An inclusive society deserves an inclusive workplace accommodation which has been vital not only for people with disabilities but also for &ldquo / all people&rsquo / &rsquo / . An investigation on Universal Design Principles will provide a background in the evaluation of the thesis. &ldquo / Universal design&rdquo / that is also known as &ldquo / inclusive design&rdquo / and &ldquo / design for all&rdquo / , has become a widely accepted design approach which considers to make the built environment, products, and communications equally accessible, usable and understandable for everyone. The study aims to emphasize the significance of the consciousness that is acquired by exposing different aspects of workplace accommodation for the built environment and design process, and evaluate workplace accommodation in frame of the universal design.

Using Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnographic approach to doing research, I explore through interviews with disabled workers how workplace accommodation policies, such as the New Policy on the Duty to Accommodate Employees with Disabilities in the Federal Public Service and the Department of Fearless Advice’s Workplace Accommodation policy, work. Starting from the standpoint of disabled employees, I map out what happens when a disabled federal public service employee activates one of these policies. I also show that the audit-based compliance evaluation process developed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to safeguard government Departments/Agencies against systemic discrimination actually facilitates discrimination. These textually-mediated ruling relations situate the problems that disabled workers encounter in the workplace in their biological makeup, rather than in the Government of Canada’s unwillingness to transform their workplaces to meet the needs of all types of workers, as legislated by the Eldridge and Meiorin Supreme Court of Canada decisions. I show, further, that the on-line recruitment process used to select employees into the federal public service encodes normality, thereby discriminating against disabled workers. I also demonstrate that, although federal public service accommodation policies accomplish the legal obligation of the employer not to discriminate against disabled workers, the individualization of accommodations forces disabled workers to take it upon themselves to find ways and means in which to fit into workplaces that have not been designed to meet their needs. I conclude by proposing that in order to change this situation and to counteract the unprecedented number of human rights complaints that have been brought against the Government of Canada for discrimination on the prohibited ground of disability, disabled workers need to follow in the militant footsteps of Canadian First Nations peoples. / Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies