Protection against Discrimination of Disability

Private employers, state and local government, employment agencies and labor unions prohibited by title1 of the Americans with disabilities act 1990 from discriminating against the qualified individual with disabilities. They face discrimination in hiring, firing, job application procedure, compensation, advancement, job training and in other policies. Reasonable accommodation should be made by employers to know the disability of qualified employees, if accommodation is not effecting employer’s business.

There are several ADA definitions protected by the law. These are the explanations of important definitions:

• DISABLED INDIVIDUAL: Disabled person is the person who has some physical and mental impairment, because of that, an individual is not able to perform one or more major activities of life. As per Supreme Court, an individual that is e\restricted to do any of the major activities related to life is considered as a disabled individual. In other words, if an individual is able to perform all the major activities in his life then he is not considered as a disabled individual as per ADA. Major activities mean those activities that a normal human being can perform without involving many efforts. These major activities are walking, seeing, hearing, talking, breathing etc.

People who have a record of limiting impairment are been protected under ADA.

• QUALIFIED DISABLED INDIVIDUAL: Qualified disabled individual is an individual who has skills, knowledge, experience, education and other requirements of that position. His disability is not that big enough that can affect his performance. He needs little accommodation to perform duties of that position.

• REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION: Reasonable accommodation means providing facilities to disabled persons that help in performing their activities. Some of the reasonable accommodations are job-restructuring, modification of work schedules, giving additional unpaid leaves, modification of equipments and devices, training material, policies. It is not compulsion for employers to provide personal items such as hearing aid.

• PROHIBITED ENQUIRIES: Before offering a job to employee, Employer may not ask about the nature and existence of the disability. Employer can ask about Abilities to perform job functions.

With or without reasonable accommodation employees must be able to perform the basic job duties and this is very essential part of ADA. To determine which functions are essential, employers need to examine each job. Employer should do this prior to recruitment, hiring and advertising.

The actual work, experience of present and past employees in the job, time taken in performing a function are included so as to determine which functions are essentials.

Medical examination should be taken as per the needs of the business. If all the applicants are giving the entrance examination for a particular examination then job may be offer on the condition of the result of medical examination.

If an individual is opposing any kind of discrimination based on disability, filling any charge or helping in investigation and litigation then that individual cannot be retaliated as per the law, under ADA.

15376 charges of disability discrimination were received by EEOC in 2004. 16949 charges were resolved and monetary benefits of 47.7$ million recovered. In addition, out of them 13% were from mental health discrimination cases. Monetary benefits through litigation are not included.