Americans With Disabilities

"The Americans With Disabilities Act is one of the most significant laws in American History. The preamble to the law states that it covers 43,000,000 Americans."(Frierson, p.3) Before the Americans With Disabilities Act(A.D.A.) was passed, employers were able to deny employment to a disabled worker, simply because he or she was disabled. With no other reason other than the persons physical disability were they turned away or released from a job. The Americans With Disabilities Act prevented this type of discrimination by establishing rules and regulations designed to protect persons with physical disabilities. With a workforce made up of 43,000,000 people, it is impossible to ignore the impact of these people. The Americans With Disabilities Act not only opened the door for millions of Americans to get back into the workplace, it is paving the road for new facilities in the workplace, new training programs and creating jobs designed for a disabled society.

I believe the Americans With Disabilities Act is the most important precedent set in the struggle against all discrimination for persons with disability. In this paper I will give a brief description of the statutes set by the Americans With Disabilities Act, pertaining to disabilities in the workplace. I will then discuss what employers are required to do according to the A.D.A. and some of the regulations they must abide by. The next section of this paper will discuss the actual training of employees with disabilities with a highlight on training programs for workers with mobility and motion disabilities. The following section of this paper will discuss the economic effects of a vocational rehabilitation program. Finally this paper will conclude with a brief discussion of what the measures set by the Americans With Disabilities Act means to the actual workers and people it benefits.

The Americans With Disabilities Act

The Americans With Disabilities Act has a section devoted to nothing but practices by employers regarding the treatment of applicants and on staff workers based on their physical condition or any health problems they may have.

Some of the disabilities included are vision, hearing, motion, or mental impairments. "Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training and other terms and conditions of employment"(The Americans With Disabilities Act). According to the Americans With Disabilities Act, the only way an employer can refuse to hire an employee based upon a disability is if that persons disability imposes an undue hardship on the operation of the employer's business. Then the question arises, what is considered an undue hardship? The Americans With Disabilities Act states that an undue hardship is any action that is considered to be in excessive cost to the employer, or if the reforms are too extensive, substantial, disruptive to the goings on of the company or anything that would substantially change the operation of the business.

In addition to this, the Americans With Disabilities Act provides some information on what employers cannot do. For instance the A.D.A. states that "employers may not ask job applicants about the existence, nature, or severity of a disability"(The Americans With Disabilities Act). This is a very important step in that it cancels out any possible internal prejudice the employer may have despite the regulations set by the A.D.A. For example if the employer has a pre-concieved notion of what he or she believes a disabled person can do, this rule will protect the applicant from such prejudice. Also, the employer cannot require an applicant take a medical examination before a job is offered. Furthermore, that a job can only be conditioned based on the results of a medical exam if those conditions apply to all workers. This aspect is important because it places all the employees of that company on the same level right form the beginning.

These measures have been set not only to put persons with disabilities on level ground with other applicants, it also protects their

rights as to the kind of treatment they will recieve. Because of this, more and more people with disabilities are going out and applying for jobs. With the added assurance and comfort the A.D.A. provides, disabled workers can go out with confidence and apply for almost any position.

There is a certain classification set by A.D.A. on what constitutes a person with a disability, that is if the person has a physical or mental disability that substantially limits a major life activity. Also, in order to be protected by the A.D.A. this person must have a long standing record of this disability and how it impairs his or her life. Once this has been established and the person has been hired there are still other guidelines set by the A.D.A. on how the employer goes about bringing this person into the company.

This can be a very sensitive area for employer, applicant and existing employees. Because of the fact that the person has a disability, undue assumptions made by all parties involved. For instance, the new employee with the disabilitiy may assume that the existing employees will think that he or she needs help with many trivial things. Or the employer may tell the other workers to watch over this person for a while.

What should be happening is what ever happens when any other person comes in for a new job, that is introductions, respect, and of course training. The guidelines for introducing a disabled worker are manualized in a book entitled "Employers Guide to The Americans With Disabilities Act, Second Edition."

Requirements of the Employer

Probably the most important aspect of hiring a person with a disability is to determine if that person is qualified to perform the job that he or she is applying for. There is a standard definition of what defines a qualified person, "...an individual with a disability who, with or without reasonable accommodations, can perform the essential function of the employment position that such individual holds or desires"(Frierson, p. 106). This means that a worker is qualified to hold any job that he or she can perform without an excess of changes to the business itself, as stated by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

There is one aspect of the hiring process that could be mistaken as discrimination, but is not. That is the employer is free to hire the most qualified person for the job. For example, if there are two applicants for a secretarial job, applicant