Business Ethics - ADA Issues

Business Ethics - ADA Issues IMPLICATIONS of the AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT The Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. In principle, the ADA provides employment rights and protections that are similar to those rights and protections afforded to individuals by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in connection with their race, religion, or ethnicity (Dershowitz, 2002).

Title I of the ADA pertains to private employers, employment agencies, labor unions, as well as to state, local, and federal government employment and specifically prohibits discrimination in the workplace against qualified persons (Hall, 1992). According to Title I of the ADA, employers of more than fifteen employees may not discriminate against persons with disabilities in any aspect of the vocational realm, including job application procedures, hiring, firing, amount of compensation, benefits, advancement and promotion, training, and any other element of the conditions and/or privileges of employment (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008).

Specific Requirements of the American with Disabilities Act: Under the ADA, "disability" for the purposes of anti-discrimination by virtue of disability is defined as (1) any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits any major life activities; (2) any record of such an impairment; and (3) any perception that a person suffers from an impairment.

Furthermore, the ADA prohibits any such discrimination provided only that the job applicant or employee who is capable of performing all of the essential job functions of a position with reasonable accommodations necessary because of any recognized disability (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). The actual degree of accommodations required by Title I depend on the size and available resources of the employer (Friedman, 2005), but generally, employers must make facilities normally used by employees readily accessible to disabled persons in a manner that allows them to use those facilities.

Title I requires that positions and work schedules be modified and that vacancies and reassignment be used to facilitate the hiring and continued employment of qualified disabled persons. Those reasonable accommodations include adapting existing equipment or acquiring equipment and/or devices necessitated by the disability, as well as the adaptation of tests, methods of evaluating work performance, training procedures, materials and policies as necessary to create a workplace that is reasonably suited to persons with disabilities.

Title I also requires the employer to provide interpreters or readers if doing so is necessary for the benefit of disabled persons capable of performing all of the job functions with such accommodations (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008).

Examples of the types of accommodations required to comply with the ADA include, wheelchair-accessible entrances, elevators, and bathroom facilities; readers for blind employees; interpreters for deaf employees, regular break schedules for employees with conditions that require periodic testing and/or drug administration procedures (such a Diabetes); and excused absences from the workplace necessitated by medical procedures or treatments for the employee's disabilities (Friedman, 2005). Limitations on ADA Requirements: The ADA does not require employers to provide accommodations that pose an undue hardship on the employer or the business entity.

The ADA defines "undue hardship" as accommodations that exceed the employer's financial resources or that would constitute significant hardship or difficulty for the employer (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008). In that regard, the ADA analysis of what accommodations are unduly difficult or expensive depends on specific factors such as the relative size and budget of the employing entity as well as the nature of the business, products, or services provided by that business.

The employer is not required to provide accommodations that would decrease the quality or the volume of the goods or services it provides, nor is the employer required to furnish specific personal items such as blood monitoring equipment, glasses, or hearing devices. Generally, the employer is only required to provide reasonable accommodations after the disabled applicant or employee makes a request for such accommodations, but employers are strictly prohibited from retaliating in any way against employees for requesting any reasonable accommodations (Dershowitz, 2002; Friedman, 2005; Halbert & Ingulli, 2008).

Where the employee does not make such a request but the employer believes that the employee's disability is significantly interfering with that.