Both federal laws and California state statutes help to protect people with disabling medical conditions. Accordingly, these individuals should not have to worry about discrimination in housing or employment. In fact, employers frequently have an obligation to provide reasonable accommodations to those applicants and workers with disabilities.
Reasonable accommodations are forms of support that allow workers with functional limitations to perform a job safely that they otherwise could not. Examples of reasonable accommodations include allowing employees to work from home, changing work responsibilities, providing assistive technology, creating accessible work spaces and allowing employees to take rest as needed.
Most of the time, California employers have an obligation to provide basic, reasonable accommodation for workers. Yet, this is not true all of the time. When can companies lawfully refuse to provide accommodations?
When they are particularly small
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) established a federal standard for disability accommodations. However, it leaves a significant number of workers unprotected because it only applies to businesses with 15 or more employees. California has expanded on the ADA. The law in California requires that employers provide accommodations if they have five or more employees. Only particularly small companies can avoid offering accommodations based on the number of workers they have.
When the accommodations create hardship
Businesses do not have to sacrifice financial stability or operational standards to accommodate a worker’s medical conditions. The key word in the statutes requiring accommodations is “reasonable.” The support needs to be medically necessary, which means there should be medical documentation affirming the need for the accommodations. The company must also be able to conform to the request without causing harm to itself.
Some accommodations are easy to provide. Companies don’t necessarily have to pay anything to offer a worker more breaks or an office closer to the bathroom. Other accommodations, like altering the workspace or purchasing assistive technology, can become expensive. Employers can potentially deny accommodation requests if they can establish that the accommodation creates an undue hardship. Undue hardships involved financially straining the company or causing substantial disruptions to business operations.
For the most part, employers should be supportive when working with applicants and employees who need support to do their jobs because of disabling medical conditions. A refusal to provide reasonable accommodations is a common form of disability discrimination. Recognizing discrimination can help people fight back against inappropriate and unfair company policies.