Compliance November 10, 2004
EEOC and FDA Release ADA Guidelines for Restaurants
November 10, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) have released a document at the
request of the National Restaurant Association (NRA)
regarding how to prevent the spread of foodborne illness
while at the same time not discriminating against employees
with disabilities.
Reported by Kip McDaniel
>The FDA and EEOC effort, entitled “How to Comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act: A Guide for Restaurants and Other Food Service Employers” and release on October 28, is available at http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/restaurant_guide.html
>The release by the two groups also gives restaurant-specific examples to help employers understand how to not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and to understand the ADA requirements.
>The NRA applauded the release of the government document , saying that it covered:
- whether and when an employer can ask a job applicant or employee medical questions; how far companies need to go in making “reasonable accommodations” to help employees perform their jobs; and protections for employees addicted to drugs or alcohol.
- 25 restaurant-specific examples to help employers understand the ADA’s requirements. Examples include a manager diagnosed with depression who asks not to be scheduled for early-morning shifts; a food-prep employee who returns to work after a back injury and whose mother requests that her daughter be allowed to sit for 10 minutes of every hour and a bartender who suffers from alcoholism who says his disability protects him from being fired after he’s observed siphoning liquor from the restaurant’s stock.
- details on where to recruit employees with disabilities, referrals to organizations that can help employers come up with low-cost “reasonable accommodations” to enable employees to perform their jobs, and a list of tax incentives to offset the costs of workplace changes to accommodate employees with disabilities.
Additional details about the ADA are at http://www.eeoc.gov/types/ada.html .