The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal Act that is in place for many companies around the country. Because it is a federal Act, it may apply to many employees in Hawaii, just as it may apply to employers and employees in states across the country.

The ADA is in place in order to ensure that employees will not be discriminated against by the employer for reasons that are related to their disabilities. When an employer is covered by the Act, the employer cannot take a worker’s disability into account when making any employment-related decisions, such as a decision about hiring, termination, training, compensation, promotion or otherwise.

Not all employers and employees are covered by the Act. In fact, for an employer to be covered by the Act, the employer needs to have at least 15 employees working for him for a calendar year. Many employees will be covered for a wide variety of disabilities. Both mental and physical disabilities will qualify for coverage, as long as the employee has a record of having a particular disability.

An example of a covered mental disability might be depression or an addiction. A covered physical disability could be a visual or hearing impairment.

Employers may have to make reasonable accommodations for employees that have disabilities. For example, if an employee is in a wheelchair, the employer may have to provide the employee with a lower work station so that the employee can access his or her work area. If the employee has a visual impairment, the employer may have to provide the employee with a modified computer monitor so that the employee can view the computer screen.

Employers should not take the added cost of such accommodations into account when making their employment-related decisions. Also, they may be required to prove their reasoning behind employment-related decisions if they are ever pressed to do so by the employer. CB

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 7:52 am and is filed under Accidents & Injury Laws, Personal Injury Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.