Video and ADA

[Adminஐﻬ]

Five Practical Tips for Providing and Maintaining Job Accommodations
http://www.jan.wvu.edu/ppt/5_Tips/5_Tips.htm

This 14 minute video addresses "Five Practical Tips for Providing and Maintaining Job Accommodations.” The video highlights job accommodation issues related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and practical ways for employers to address these issues.
www.LupusMCTD.com

[Adminஐﻬ]

http://www.khnl.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=2522389&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Hawaii+Disabled+Residents+Want+Equal+Accessibility&d1=170533&redirUrl=www.khnl.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=29538961
Hawaii is behind the times in being set up for Americans with disabilities

[Adminஐﻬ]

After five years of running around Capitol Hill circles, a bill that broadens the Americans with Disabilities Act, adding protection from job discrimination for workers who have diseases or impairments, was finally approved. Indeed, the wheels of Congress move painfully slow, but this is a victory for millions of Americans.

The bill updates the ADA, which was passed in 1990, and addresses more realistic situations for workers who have ailments as severe as cancer or as chronic as carpal tunnel syndrome, and yet these workers can show they are still capable of doing the job. They now avoid discrimination by employers.

The measure is in response to the Supreme Court's absurd interpretation of the old law. When ADA passed, Congress was short-sighted in saying the anti-discrimination law protected anyone with a "physical or mental impairment" that "substantially limits" them.

When lawsuits finally reached the Supreme Court, workers generally got the short end of the stick because the high court limited the law to people who were disabled, and not those who had common impairments that could be treated.

A report in the Los Angeles Times gave some prime examples of how the ADA was flawed and misinterpreted by the high court. The court in 1999 threw out a disability-discrimination claim from a truck mechanic in Kansas who was fired because he had unusually high blood pressure. The court ruled that the mechanic did not have a disability because medication brought his blood

There was an auto worker in 2002 who had carpal tunnel syndrome and could no longer perform repetitive tasks on the assembly line, yet the Supreme Court ruled she did not have a disability.

Now people with medical conditions who can still function in their jobs will not bump up against discrimination.

While this perhaps opens the door for more lawsuits, the burden rests more equally on employees, who must show they are qualified to do their jobs under the new law, and employers, who must seek "reasonable accommodation" that would permit such employees to work.

Our lawmakers finally got real with American workers.
press release

[Adminஐﻬ]

Americans with Disabilities Act: Big Changes in 2009

Historically, those seeking protection from employment discrimination on the basis of their disability have been traveling down a challenging road.

The promise of 1990’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was dimmed a decade later by United States Supreme Court interpretations that made it extremely difficult for a person to prove they were “disabled” in a legal sense. Supreme Court decisions in 1999 and 2002 reduced a person’s ability to demonstrate that they were entitled to protections under the ADA. While the ADA was designed to protect individuals with disabilities from employment discrimination, individuals who were no longer limited in their life functions through the use of medication or other mitigating actions frequently discovered they were not protected by the ADA.

Now Congress has passed, and President Bush has signed, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 – a law that attempts to restore ADA back to its original intent. Under the new amendments, effective January 1, 2009, the determination of whether a person has an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, a “disability” in the legal sense under the ADA, must be made, with a few exceptions, without regard to the beneficial effects of a mitigating action, such as taking medication. In addition, the amendments require that the disability only has to limit one major life activity.

While beneficial to the worker, these amendments will provide more certainty in the interpretation of the ADA for companies, as well. Not only will the amendments make it easier for workers to establish they are disabled, but they will also improve a company’s ability to determine whether they are dealing with a worker who is disabled, especially when the worker asks for an accommodation based on their impairment. This provides forward-thinking companies the opportunity to establish effective human resource management policies that facilitate disabled workers.

It is extremely important that human resource managers understand the significance of these amendments. To that end, the Florida Commission on Human Relations offers workshops and an annual Employment Law Conference to keep individuals informed of their rights and responsibilities under state and federal anti-discrimination laws. By learning more about these important laws, business owners and managers can avoid costly lawsuits, decreased productivity, and low employee morale.

For more information about the Florida Commission on Human Relations, our upcoming Florida Employment Law Conference or the trainings we offer, please visit our website at http://fchr.state.fl.us.