Discrimination Against Deaf People In The Workplace

Discrimination against Deaf people in the Workplace.

With the help of the EEOC many cases have been taken to court and discrimination thrust into the spotlight where it should be to be stopped. One EEOC case was of an Arizona woman who sued an Arizona Starbucks for discrimination while she was an employee in 2015. She had worked for the company for about seven years and throughout those years she asked for reasonable accommodations for important events, but was denied those accommodations most of the time. Finally, after putting up with it for so long the woman filed a complaint with the EEOC, she claims to have been fired soon after for speaking up. Yet “According to the lawsuit, Starbucks told her she was being fired for having visible tattoos”

Ricky Washington, who’s Deaf, filled out an online application for a job at a McDonald’s restaurant in Belton, Missouri in June of 2012. On his application he showed that he had attended Kansas School for the Deaf. He also specified that he had previous work experience as a cook and clean-up team member at a McDonald’s location in Louisiana in 2009. Yet, when the Belton manager found out that Mr. Washington needed a sign language interpreter for his interview, she canceled it. Mr. Washington’s sister volunteered to interpret for the interview and he made several attempts to reschedule, but the manager never did. In spite of the fact that management continued to interview and hire more workers after Mr. Washington’s attempts. The EEOC filed a lawsuit after first trying to settle the case before it had to go through court. The EEOC was asking for compensation, punitive damages and most importantly “training for all McDonald’s managers on accommodations for applicants with disabilities, particularly those who are deaf” (eeoc.gov). Just recently in the month of October in 2016 the “McDonald’s Corporation and McDonald’s Restaurants of Missouri will pay $56,500 and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination suit by the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)”