Discipline and Discharge

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission/s (EEOC) Technical Assistance Manual on employment, an employer can hold employees with disabilities to the same standards of productivity/performance as other similarly situated employees without disabilities for performing essential job functions (with or without reasonable accommodation).  Employers can also hold employees with disabilities to the same standards of productivity/performance as other employees in the performance of marginal job functions, unless the disability affects the ability to perform these marginal functions.  In this case the employer needs to provide some type of reasonable accommodation unless doing so would be an undue hardship.

Thus, the employer should not give employees with disabilities "special treatment".  Employees with disabilities should not be evaluated on a lower standard or disciplined less severely than any other employee.  However, if the employee is not performing well, an employer can require medical and other professional inquiries that are job-related and consistent with business necessity to find out whether the disability is causing the poor performance, and whether any reasonable accommodation is needed.  An employee with a disability may not be disciplined or terminated if there was failure to provide a requested reasonable accommodation that would not constitute an undue hardship, and the reason for the unsatisfactory performance was the lack of the accommodation.

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Alcohol and/or illegal use of drugs

An employer may prohibit the illegal use of drugs and the use of alcohol at the workplace.  Therefore, the employer may discharge or deny employment to persons who currently engage in the illegal use of drugs, or to an alcoholic whose use of alcohol impairs job performance, attendance, or conduct to the extent that they are no longer a "qualified individual with a disability".

For more information click here

http://www.adaportal.org/Employment/Browse_TAM_I/Chapter_VII_7-7.html to go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Technical Assistance Manual on employment related to Evaluations, Discipline and Discharge.

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