Regarding DSB purchase of assistive technology and other
accommodations for participants' use on the job.
WHEREAS,
at the outset of employment and on an as-needed basis, blind individuals may require
certain assistive technology and other reasonable accommodations to allow them
to compete on an equal basis with their sighted peers in the workforce; and
WHEREAS,
the Washington Department of Services for the Blind (DSB) currently has
a practice of asking employers who hire its vocational rehabilitation program
participants to document that it would be an undue hardship for the employers
to provide assistive technology and other job accommodations for those DSB
participants before DSB will purchase the needed accommodations itself; and
WHEREAS, DSB's current practice places
DSB participants' employment in jeopardy as it only results in delay in
acquiring needed assistive technology and other accommodations and causes
tension in, and even an adversarial beginning to, the employment relationship;
and
WHEREAS, the vast majority of employers
are not such risk takers that-- by asserting in writing that job accommodations
are unduly burdensome--they want to create Exhibit Number One should any
litigation arise out of their employment of DSB's participants; and
WHEREAS, DSB justifies its practice
because it does not want to supplant employers' distinct responsibilities under
Title I of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide accommodations to their employees who are
disabled; and
WHEREAS, the federal Equal Opportunity
Commission, not DSB, is responsible for enforcing Title I of the
WHEREAS, rehabilitation technologies are not
"comparable benefits" exempted from DSB's responsibilities under the
Rehabilitation Act, nor are employers' "comparable services"; and
WHEREAS, a decade ago, through technical
assistance circular 98-04, the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration
expressly advised state vocational rehabilitation agencies, including DSB, that
they are not to shift responsibility for providing rehabilitation technology to
employers, stating that there is no basis in Title I of the Rehabilitation Act
or its implementing regulations for state vocational rehabilitation agencies to
provide necessary rehabilitation technology contingent on employers meeting an undue
hardship test under the ADA; and
WHEREAS, DSB's primary obligation is to
its participants and DSB should do whatever is needed and lawful to help its
participants get and keep jobs: NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation
of the Blind of Washington in convention assembled this 21st day of October
2007 in the city of Olympia that we call on DSB to halt its practice of
requiring employers to shoulder the burden of demonstrating an undue hardship
to justify why DSB should assist its own participants in successfully securing
and performing jobs.