By: Flynn Butterly
October 2024

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October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. In honor of the month, we would like to take a moment to highlight some resources for furthering education and enabling positive change towards equity in the workplace! Click here to read more! 

Since its passing in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has provided sweeping changes to make the nation more accessible. This included providing explicit protections to disabled individuals against employee discrimination. A disabled individual is not required to disclose their status in utilizing sick leave or in seeking accommodations in the workplace. In general, an employer may not utilize a person’s disability status to inform firing, hiring, or promotional decisions, and where possible the employer must make reasonable accommodations to enable disabled employees to be able to work.

What is a “reasonable accommodation”? That can depend on many factors such as the disability affecting the employee, the industry/position, and more. The process of researching, understanding and applying for accommodations can be long and daunting for disabled individuals. Even if an employee knows they are entitled to accommodations, they might not know what accommodations are possible. One place to start is with the Job Accessibility Network (JAN), a database of accommodations that is easily searchable by condition. This very thorough site has entries for everything from mobility impacts, hearing and sight impairments, asthma, PTSD, fibromyalgia, Crohn's Disease, and more.

Disabilities come in all different shapes and sizes, and even two people with the same condition might have different experiences and different wants and needs regarding addressing it. Not all disabilities are visible, and you can never tell what someone is experiencing from the outside. This month remember to be kind and compassionate. The smallest efforts can make a huge impact on a person’s quality of life. Though some folks may work differently, we’re all working towards the same goals. Remember to center an individual’s personhood above any other factor. Together we can make the world a place where everyone has access to opportunities and can contribute how best they can to their community.

Resources and Additional Reading

Job Accessibility Network: https://askjan.org/

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Website: https://www.eeoc.gov/
https://www.eeoc.gov/remedies-employment-discrimination

National Disabled Employee Awareness Month website (By the US Department of Labor):
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/initiatives/ndeam#:~:text=Plan%20NDEAM%20Observances

More information Regarding the ADA and PA anti-Discrimination Laws
https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/ada/
https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/phrc/programs-and-services/file-a-complaint/employment-discrimination-complaint.html
https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/phrc/legal-resources/policy-and-law.html