New ADA Guidelines for Fragrance Sensitivity

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Employers need to be aware that allergies to fragrance or multiple chemical sensitivities can be disabilities under ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

This was amply illustrated in a recent post on McBride v. the City of Detroit that ruled senior city manager Susan McBride’s chemical sensitivity was a disability under ADA because it interfered with the major life activity of breathing.

One of the major problems in that case was that the HR department for the City of Detroit simply refused McBride’s request, without any interactive process to uncover a reasonable accommodation.

According to the Job Accommodation Network or JAN, there are a number of ways that employers can accommodate workers with fragrance allergies or chemical sensitivities. JAN is a great resource for any employer dealing with an accommodation issue under ADA.

In the JAN guide on fragrance sensitivities, the non-profit organization suggests that employers take a number of steps before implementing a fragrance-free workplace. These include maintaining good indoor air quality an air purification system. Often, moving the disabled employee’s workstation or modifying his or her schedule is helpful. Employers should consider allowing the employee to communicate with coworkers by Skype, telephone or email, rather than face-to-face.

The most extreme accommodation is to implement a workplace policy asking or requiring all employees to use on fragrance-free products. This includes abstaining from perfume, cologne and aftershave as well as scented soaps and deodorants, and even using unscented laundry soap.

It’s Time to Support Young Caregivers

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While Alzheimer’s disease is most common among peopled aged 65 and older, its effects are being felt more and more by young people. In fact, 1 in 6 millennial caregivers—at an average age of 27—is caring for someone living with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, according to a recent report from UsAgainstAlzheimer’s and the USC Roybal Institute on Aging.

Lisette Carbajal was in her 20s when she noticed her father’s symptoms. According to Lisette, “One of the reasons why I’m so vocal about my dad’s disease is because I hope that no one else my age, 20 or 30 years from now, has to take care of their dad beginning at 20 years old.”

With the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in the U.S. expected to grow from 5 million today to nearly 16 million by 2050, more millennials like Lisette will likely face caregiving responsibilities in the future. The following are key themes connecting these dynamic caregivers.

Navigating the Health Care System is a Priority

Millennials are playing an increasingly larger role in health care as they navigate the system for their care partners. The most common caregiving activities include communicating with health care professionals (70%) and performing nursing tasks (54%)—often without access to specialized training or support.

The Lack of Support is a Major Pain Point

Millennial dementia caregivers feel that emotional distress is a major caregiving hardship (79%), and nearly 4 in 5—an overwhelming majority—report that accessing affordable outside help is very difficult.

Caregiving is Limiting Economic Opportunity

Caregivers often take time off work or work fewer hours, and for millennials, this means doing so at a time when professional growth is critical to earning potential. About 1 in 3 millennial dementia caregivers states that caregiving interferes with work, and 1 in 3 reports severe interference with work (e.g., cutting back hours, losing job benefits, being fired). This economic burden is an acute pain point for caregivers with only a high school education or less.

To better support young caregivers at the frontlines of the dementia crisis, UsAgainstAlzheimer’s is working with youth leaders like the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s and Hilarity for Charity to build intergenerational bridges, raise the visibility of young caregivers, and advance policy and programming solutions to our shared challenges. It’s clear that young people have a stake in promoting brain health and healthy aging. Learn more and stay connected by joining us.

ODR for All: Digital Accessibility and Disability Accommodations in Online Dispute Resolution

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Digital accessibility is about making sure people with disabilities can use and interact with technology. Digital accessibility ensures participation of people who use computers and mobile devices but cannot see a screen, hear a video, hold a mouse, or have other disabilities impacting how technology is used.  

The promise of online dispute resolution (ODR) depends on accessibility.  Without it, ODR cannot meet the needs of its stakeholders.  Why?  Because accessibility and ODR have one very important thing in common:  they are both about serving the needs of people.

Accessibility allows ODR systems to reach the greatest number of people possible. 

Websites, mobile applications, software platforms and other technologies are accessible when developed and designed to internationally recognized accessibility standards. But design and development are not enough. A host of best practices related to business processes, training and more exist to bake accessibility into systems.

Systems like ODR. 

While accessibility is a civil and human right of disabled people, accessible ODR platforms and content benefit more than people with disabilities. Accessibility is essential for some, useful for all. 

Just as curb ramps aid parents with strollers along with wheelchair users, captioned video content benefits anyone in a noisy environment along with deaf and hard of hearing people.  A well designed easy to navigate website benefits aging boomers along with people with cognitive and other disabilities.

Universally designed digital content benefits everyone.  

The Dark Reality Behind America’s Greatest Thrift Store Empire

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Goodwill has long been my favorite store. As someone who detests the practices of most businesses that exploit cheap labor in foreign countries, not to mention the cost of buying goods retail, I love shopping at Goodwill. At the same time, I always wondered- is something a little sketchy here?

Everybody loves Goodwill. I’m not denying that. Your favorite collectible art piece or pair of pants you could never afford at retail price are fond, happy discoveries borne within that treasure trove palace behind those beautiful blue doors. The glories of thrift store shopping aside, is Goodwill really a charity?

Legally, yes, it is a tax-exempt nonprofit that does perform work for the public good.

But morally? It’s got some pretty dark secrets.

I am not denying that Goodwill does some really wonderful stuff. But what if we didn’t know the whole story?

In the United States and Canada, the thrift store giant runs over 164 regional Goodwill organizations and 3,200 individual stores. Goodwill brands itself as a nonprofit that provides jobs to disabled workers. But that’s not quite the whole story. Suspicious business practices and lack of corporate oversight will make you question if Goodwill is actually such a good guy after all.

Here are my 10 most outstanding contentions.

1. Less than one eighth of the company’s profit goes towards its charity work.

2. Your donated items get shipped out to neo-imperialist buyers that threaten developing industry in third world countries.

3. Goodwill has actively fought against legislative proposals to raise the minimum wage.

4. Goodwill seized on an archaic 1938 law to justify paying workers as little as 22 cents an hour.

5. Many people with disabilities have actually died from injuries borne of Goodwill’s unsafe workplace safety practices.

6. Employees that criticize Goodwill’s practices end up getting fired, threatened, and publicly defamed by the company.

7. Employees are subject to strict, unrealistic performance quotas, and their wages are docked if they’re not fast enough.

8. Hiring disabled and formerly incarcerated people is not a ‘venerable’ act of charity, it’s corporate responsibility.

9. Goodwill’s legal status as a charity wins grants and tax subsidies, manifesting in hugely lucrative quantities of profit for executives that are not evenly distributed among the people they are intended to benefit.

10. Perhaps most of all, it is troubling to promote your business as a charitable institution, project a false image of your workplace practices, and abuse the public’s trust.