The Role of Social Partners in Croatia in Tackling Discrimination Based on Age and Disability at the Workplace

Discrimination can be defined as any unequal treatment of a person linked to a specific or related trait that is not justified and leads to a disadvantage. The purpose of this text is to present the situation concerning discrimination based on age and disability in the workplace and the role and activities of social partners regarding its reduction in Croatia. The methodology involved desk research of various documents related to workplace discrimination and social partners' activities. Furthermore, six semi-structured interviews with social partners were conducted on the topic. The results show that social partners are quite active in the fight against age and disability discrimination. Some social partners stress that other priorities must take precedence because there are more urgent problems in the Croatian labour market than discrimination. However, despite sophisticated laws, research and interviews have shown that a significant part of employers and employees do not understand the concept of discrimination and/or do not even know whether discrimination is punishable by law. There is a need to organize a public campaign to raise citizens’ awareness of all types of discrimination, particularly workplace discrimination related to age and disability. Ključne riječi discrimination; Croatia; labour market; age; disability; social partners