Reasonable adjustments in favour of the caregiver – obligation to adopt adjustments and consequent organisational modifications – limit of undue hardship for the employer – failure to adopt the adjustment – CJEU judgment of 11 September 2025, Case C-38/24 – indirect discrimination – established – caregiver\'s request for assignment to a fixed shift – undue hardship – not established – comparison with non-caregiver workers – irrelevance

By virtue of the CJEU judgment of 11 September 2025 in Case C-38/24, the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of disability must be held to protect not only disabled workers themselves, but also those who care for them, and such protection extends to indirect discrimination. Consequently, the failure to adopt reasonable organisational arrangements which, pursuant to Article 5 of Legislative Decree No. 216/2003, would enable the caregiver to provide to their child with a disability the assistance necessary to meet that child\'s care needs constitutes discrimination. The judgment under appeal must therefore be quashed: faced with the caregiver\'s request to be assigned a fixed morning shift, the court below failed to consider the absence of undue hardship in granting such assignment; treated as adequate accommodation the employer\'s conduct in adopting, in favour of the caregiver, only temporary measures successively renewed; placed the caregiver on an equal footing, for the purposes of the measures to be adopted, with workers exempted from certain shifts and duties on account of their own disabilities; and finally failed to take into account the caregiver\'s willingness to be assigned to lower-graded duties.