ADA Compliance & Employer Attitudes

ADA COMPLIANCE AND THEIR RELATION TO EMPLOYER DEMOGRAPHICS

Dimmitt (1995) has noted that Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has caused employers to scrutinize and revamp their hiring, human resource, and risk management practices. Five years after the ADA's enactment, trends are emerging about the people Title I is helping, what the law is costing employers, and how some companies are taking advantage. Many employers, according to Dimmitt (1995), feared the ADA would leave them swamped by job applications from disabled people, forcing them to make expensive changes in their workplaces. However, the unemployment rate of people with disabilities increased from 66% in 1986 to 68% in 1994; a fact that has led many critics of the ADA contend that the law is a failure.

The question that needs to be addressed here is what the existing literature indicates may be factors that contribute to employer compliance with the ADA or to their lack thereof. In this regard, Vandergoot (1993) notes that many times employers are reluctant to hire people with disabilities because of inadequacies in vocational preparation. Specifically, Vandergoot reports that the entire system of vocational rehabilitation services has an unclear mission regarding vocational education for the disabled as well as faulty assumptions about how to achieve the mission.

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ligion, or marital status? Definition of Terms In order to clarify the proposed research's general intent and methods, the following key terms are here defined: ADA: This term refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act which, according to LeBeau (1993) is a legislative attempt to make work facilities fully accessible, services available, attitudes positive and professional, and employment attainable for individuals with disabilities. Specifically, the ADA provides protection for people who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity; and specifies that they be qualified to perform the essential functions of a job, even if the employer has to make some accommodating changes to the workplace. It should be noted that ADA standards are focused not only on physical accommodations but also upon attitude change in the workplace as it relates to the disabled. Disabilities: For the purposes of this study, this term will be used to refer to several classes of people with handicaps including those with: impaired motor function due to such physical problems as spinal cord injury, or progressive neuromuscular disease; with hearing/visual impairments, and those with slight to moderate mental
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Approximate Word count = 1913
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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