Two Hawaiian nonprofits, Opportunities and Resources, Inc., and ORI Avenue Hale, Inc., settled a disability discrimination lawsuit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $325,000.
The nonprofits, which provide janitorial services for military facilities in the state, received, since 2015, numerous reasonable accommodation requests from deaf employees for American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters in company safety meetings. The concern was that hearing-impaired employees were not hearing everything in the safety meetings, which included critical safety discussions of "chemical hazards and other safety precautions."
The EEOC alleged the nonprofits failed to "engage in the interactive process" and just "passed notes" instead.
Beside the settlement payment, the nonprofits have agreed to be monitored for EEOC compliance, hire interpreters for safety meetings and increase training, including deaf culture training. The case will remain under the Court's jurisdiction for a term of five years. "Opportunities & Resources, Inc. to Pay $325,000 in EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit" www.eeoc.gov (Jun. 27, 2024).
Commentary and Checklist
Provision of an ASL interpreter is a common reasonable accommodation for deaf employees. It is particularly important that whatever communication enhancement is chosen, especially when safety training is involved, it must be sufficient to communicate everything the employee needs to know. The proper approach is to engage in an interactive process, involving a healthcare provider, who can provide information on reasonable accommodations.
Per the EEOC's website, here is additional information on disability discrimination: https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination and an ASL video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGVmImhj5KI.
According to AskJan.org – a good resource for employers - there are many possible accommodation for deafness, which can vary in appropriateness by job duty:
- "Apps for Individuals Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- CART Services
- CART Services - Remote
- Communicate Another Way
- Communication Access Technologies
- Cyclist's Mirror
- Industrial Mirrors
- Instant Messaging and Texting Solutions for Businesses
- Interpreter
- Large Visual Display for TTY
- Masks - Clear
- Notepad or White Board
- Paging Products & Services
- Real-time and Off-line Captioning Services
- Strobe Lights
- Telephone Flasher
- TTY - Portable
- TTY Software
- TTYs (Text Telephones)
- Video Relay Services (VRS)
- Video Remote Interpreting Services (VRI)."
