Settlement Agreement: Fairfax Nursing Center
Roto Rooter to Pay $100,000 to Settle EEOC Disability Discrimination Charge
In a conciliation agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Roto Rooter Services Company will pay $100,000 to resolve a disability discrimination charge filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
An investigation by the EEOC's Minneapolis Area Office revealed that a Plymouth, Minn., Roto Rooter location denied an employee who returned from the Iraq War with service-related disabilities reasonable accommodations to enable him to return to work. Instead, the EEOC said, Roto Rooter fired the employee. Following the investigation, the EEOC determined that there was reasonable cause to believe that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
"Firing a war veteran for his disabilities incurred serving his country is just plain wrong and clearly violates federal law," said Julianne Bowman, district director of the EEOC's Chicago District. "However, we appreciate that Roto Rooter worked cooperatively with the EEOC to resolve this charge without having to go through protracted litigation."
In addition to paying $100,000, the conciliation agreement requires the company to provide training focused on the ADA and reasonable accommodation and to report employee requests for reasonable accommodation to the EEOC.
Settling ADA claim: Good records essential when offering money in exchange for resignation
Business Management Daily
Are you considering settling an ADA accommodations case by paying a lump sum? Do you think the employee could do his job with an accommodation?
Then keep good records of your accommodations process, the medical records you used to consider possible accommodations and other information about the employee, his job and his abilities.
You may need that information if he later applies for disability retirement.
With good records, you just might be able to show that the employee isn’t disabled enough to qualify for benefits.
Employing individuals with disabilities: The 7% utilization goal can be hard to reach
HR.BLR.com
Disability inclusion practices—What works
Although the 7% utilization goal is proving elusive, the clear majority of employers surveyed are undertaking efforts to hire and retain employees with disabilities. More than three-quarters of organizations surveyed reported having disability inclusion practices and policies in place, including:
Providing managers with information regarding reasonable accommodations (88%)
Building external partnerships with organizations that promote disability employment (86%)
Assuring employees they will not be discriminated against if they self-disclose a disability (80%)
Establishing a single point of contact for disability-related issues and accommodations (78%)
Holding managers accountable for cultivating an inclusive workplace (76%)
The survey results showed that the more disability inclusion practices an employer had in place, the more likely the employer was to get close to or meet OFCCP’s 7% utilization goal. Two practices in particular seemed to be common in the employers that met the utilization goal—improving disability awareness and holding managers accountable for meeting targets. Also effective in helping employers meet their utilization goals were offering training and resources to improve disability awareness.
MDE agrees to overhaul web site to address federal complaint
Detroit Free Press
The Michigan Department of Education has a mountainous task ahead of it to comply with a federal directive and make its website accessible to people with disabilities.
The brunt of that task: Captioning up to 800 videos and taking up to 8,000 documents and either converting them so they're accessible to people with visual impairments or deleting them from the website, www.michigan.gov/mde. The changes will make it easier for people with disabilities, particularly those with visual and hearing impairments, to access material on the site.
"This is the right thing to do," said Martin Ackley, spokesman for the MDE. "People with disabilities want to participate and watch the videos or read things on the website. We understand that."
Medical Daily
Negotiating an adoption, which commonly includes fees, applications, and criminal history checks, is a time-consuming and difficult process for most people. A new study finds the experiences of childhood cancer survivors may be worse since the policies set by adoption agencies limit their options. Based on these results, the researchers suggest trained oncology health care providers offer patients the necessary information to guide crucial decisions about the adoption process.
“Survivors may have questions about adoption and oncology nurses are in a good position to address these questions during survivor care,” Dr. Gwendolyn Quinn of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa told Medical Daily in an email.
Stewart: Disability compliance goes beyond written job requirements
Northwest Herald
Navigating the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) can be perilous for employers for several reasons. A simplification of the ADA is that if an employee has a disability, the employer may not discriminate against the person on the basis of the disability.
The act’s definition of discrimination includes the failure of the employer to make a reasonable accommodation for the known disability of an employee. If an employee with a disability is able to perform the essential functions of the job – with or without a reasonable accommodation – then an employee may not be treated adversely (i.e. not hired or terminated) due to the inability to perform a task that is not an essential function of the position.
A common but sometimes incorrect approach employers apply to situations involving an employee or job applicant with a disability is to deem any stated job requirement to also be an essential job function.
Activists sue Los Angeles over Hyperion Bridge design's single sidewalk
Los Angeles Times
The suit, filed by a group of local activists, seeks to overturn the Los Angeles City Council's unanimous approval of a $50-million seismic retrofit of the Glendale Boulevard-Hyperion Avenue Bridge, which spans Interstate 5 and the Los Angeles River. The decision pitted residents and businesses loath to lose a car lane against bicyclists, pedestrian activists and neighborhood groups who said the design would discriminate against the disabled and discourage walking.