Disability, the Requirement by Law - Essay Example

Policy Paper Disability has been accredited for being a major cause for concern in the employment sector especially where employee rights are violated based their incapacitation. Disability is caused by various factors that can be natural or man made. People can be born with deformities in their physical appearance or have some of their faculties diminished or missing. Features of such disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing and deformed limbs and diminished mental ability. Accidents also contribute immensely in disabling people especially work place accidents where accidents are caused in the use of machinery and equipment. Whatever the cause of disability, the different conditions that people find themselves in predispose them to discrimination in the workplace. This led to the need for a way to protect these people’s rights in society and in the workplace. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is seen as the first major legislation that addressed the needs and rights of people with disabilities in its Title VII article. The articles of Title VII address the plight of all people in the employment sector, and it emphasizes the need for equal treatment of persons with disabilities. This act led to the formulation of other laws and institutions that safeguard the rights of individuals in the employment sector. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is one such institution that is mandated with enforcing employee/employer rights in the work place as stipulated in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a legislation that was formulated and enacted to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in the workplace and in society. This paper seeks to highlight the plight of disabled people in the workplace and the laws that act as guidelines for their treatment and as safeguards of their rights. Denying people with disability a job opportunity is against the law that is stipulated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII. Disability discrimination is described by the EEOC as the situation where an employer or any other related entity treats a qualified individual with a disability unfavorably because of their disability (Rothstein and Liebman 19). These individuals can either be employees or job applicants. The law requires that employers provide appropriate and reasonable accommodation to a job applicant with disability as long as doing so does not cause significant expense or difficulty to the employer. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forbids discrimination of job applicants in all aspects of employment that includes firing, hiring, job assignment and other conditions and terms of employment. The law makes it illegal to harass a job applicant because he/she has a disability or has relations with a disabled individual. Harassment does not entail physical abuse, but also offensive remarks that are severe leading to a hostile work environment. When verbal harassment results, in adverse employment decisions, it disposes the harasser to prosecution under the law (Rothstein and Liebman 56). The requirement by law that employers provide reasonable accommodation to disabled job applicants entails changing the work environment to enable the disabled individual competently carry out their duties. These accommodations include building access ramps for wheel chairs and providing interpreting equipment for those with sight and hearing disabilities. This provision in law also provides protection for employers in the sense that the employer is not forced to incur huge expenses while providing these accommodations.This falls under the undue hardship provision that states that an employer does not have to provide accommodation to a disabled job applicant if doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer (Rothstein and Liebman 34). Undue hardship occurs if providing these accommodations proves to be too expensive or difficult in light of the employer’s size, the needs of the business and their financial resources. The EEOC is tasked with enforcing the provisions of Title VII article in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and those stipulated in the ADA of 1990. The ADA makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate against a qualified job applicant because of their disability. According to the ADA provisions, a disabled person is one who has a physical or mental impairment that significantly limits their activities in life. It also defines a person with disability as who perceived by an employer as having a substantially limiting impairment or has a record of limiting impairment (Rothstein and Liebman 18). This act stipulates that an employer can not deny a job applicant an opportunity because the applicant asks for reasonable accommodation to perform or compete for a job. The ADA also requires employers to provide job applicants with tests that are in a format that does not require the applicants to use their impaired skills. This is to avoid putting the disabled job applicant at a disadvantage because his/her disability would limit the performance in the test. An employer is also forbidden by the ADA from denying a disabled job applicant an opportunity because their disability prevents them from performing minor duties that are not essential to the job assignment or criteria (Rothstein and Liebman 23). The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 also known as Wages and Hours bill is another legislation that addresses issues relating with the remuneration of employees in the employment sector. The statutes of this act established a maximum of a 44 hour work week and a minimum wage criterion for all employers and employees in all states. The act advocates for equal pay for substantially equal work to all employees regardless of their physical or mental ability. The FLSA provisions enable people with disability to access fair remuneration in accordance with the equal pay for substantially equal work. This is in the sense that its provisions enable employers to give disabled individuals the opportunity to work for them despite their disability which might compromise the quality and quantity of job done. The provisions allow employers to pay disabled employees wages that are below the legal state minimum wage according to their productivity in the workplace. This protects employers form undue hardships in terms of paying wages that do not match or are way above the job done. Although this provision is beneficial to employers, it creates loopholes through which some unscrupulous employers might use to take advantage of disabled employees and exploit them through payment of unfair wages. The US government is still faced with challenges that are presented by disabled persons in the work place. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a culmination of many years of agitation by human rights activists since the times of Abraham Lincoln who advocated for an end to slavery. This act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in which the efforts of Civil Rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. come to fruition. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act saw the creation of the EEOC and the later formulation of the ADA. The EEOC has been able to afford many disabled persons the opportunity to access gainful employment where it would have impossible in the past. These institutions can be accredited with alleviating the plight of disabled persons in the workplace, but it has also been blamed for creating exploitation avenues in the work place. The FLSA for instance has created loopholes in the remuneration of employees because it makes it possible for employers to pay disabled employee below the minimum wage for equal work done. The requirement by the EEOC for employers to provide reasonable and appropriate accommodation to disabled job applicants created room for exploitation. This is in the sense that employers could deny qualified disabled job applicants the opportunity under the guise of undue hardship. There is a lot that remains to be done that will ensure future disabled job applicants compete on the same level with people without disabilities. There are simple initiatives that can be implemented by employers in a universal or as a standard for all workplaces to be compliant with the basic needs of disabled peopled. This would make it easier for both employers and job applicants to work together without necessarily having to go to extra lengths and appropriating special measures of accommodation. Incorporation of amenities like wheelchair rumps, ablution facilities that are usable by the disabled and efforts related to alleviating the disabled plight in the employment sector. Works Cited Rothstein, Mark A., and Lance Liebman. Employment Law, Cases and Materials, 7th Concise, 2012 Supplement. New York: West Group, 2012. Print. Read More