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E-Mail Newsletter
December 21, 2015 Winter 2015
Volume 1, Number 2
WORKPLACE REPPORTER
Vol 1 No 4
Workplace Section Leaders Co-Chairs Art Finkle [email protected] 215-860-3991
Workplace Section (WPS) co-chairs, Art Finkle (2013- September 2016)
and Katrina Nobles (2014- September 2017) look forward to continuing to serve
as section leaders during the upcoming year. WPS co-chair Sarah Miller
Espinosa stepped down as co-chair after being appointed to serve as a member
of the ACR Board of Directors. Espinosa will serve as the WPS practice lead for
arbitration.
Angela Dash, a longstanding member of ACR and charter board member
of the ACR Georgia chapter, will join Art and Katrina as co-chair. Dash provides
coaching, mediation, facilitation, and training services in her private practice as
well as in her current role as Ombuds at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
Prior to her current appointment, Dash spent 14 years in leadership roles in
Georgia’s courts, including managing one of Georgia’s largest court based ADR
programs. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in conflict analysis and
resolution at Nova Southeastern University.
Angela, the principal trainer and consultant of The Pace Institute uses her knowledge of theory and practice to provide facilitation and mediation training as well as coaching services. She also creates customized trainings for client organizations. Angela is the Ombuds at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
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Prior to her appointment, Dash spent over fourteen years in various leadership positions in Georgia’s court system.
Dash holds several professional distinctions (Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®) and Society for Human Resources Management - Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).
Dash is a doctoral candidate at Nova Southeastern University, pursuing a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
Theresa Gray (2015 – September 2018) was recently elected to serve as
the WPS Diversity & Equity Point Person. Gray has been volunteering for ACR
for many years and mediating for over 20 years. Her current focus is workplace
mediation. She has taught classes in mediation, negotiations, and conflict
resolution. Gray formerly served on the Southern California Mediation
Association Board of Directors and the Orange County Mediation Conference
Committee.
Volunteer practice leads for 2015-2016 include: Patti Stiles and Lorraine
Court reasons that unreasonably withdrawing a reasonable accommodation is reason
for employee to win ADA suit
Eric B. Meyer
Let's say that you have an employee whom the Americans with Disabilities Act would consider disabled and to whom you have afforded a reasonable accommodation for a long time.
Maybe it's a few years of light duty to accommodate your employee's bad back. Maybe it's keeping your employee with medically-documented sleeping issues off of the graveyard shift.
Or maybe, like in this case, it's allowing an employee who takes morning meds for ADD and bipolar disorder to arrive to work a late, so the meds can kick in. Indeed, for 2 1/2 years, the employee in this particular situation was accommodated with modified start time.
But following a change in management at the company, without explanation, the employer unilaterally withdrew the accommodation. Just like that.
So, the employee brought a failure-to-accommodate claim under the ADA.
Now, you may be thinking, can an employer really do that? Can it just stop accommodating an ADA-disabled employee without some sort of justification or demonstrating undue hardship?
Funny, that's what a federal judge was thinking when he not only denied the employer's motion for summary judgment, but also granted the plaintiff's cross motion:
"Crane had already made a reasonable accommodation to enable Isbell to do her job -- for some 2-1/2 years it had accommodated the later-starting work schedule that she had requested to meet her special needs for the performance of her job responsibilities. No real reason has been proffered by Crane as to why a new management broom, who (not incidentally) had no prior knowledge of Isbell's special arrangement or of the needs that had prompted it, should be entitled to start by subjecting her to a one-size-fits-all timing sweep. Indeed, as already indicated in the preceding paragraph, such uniformity of treatment is precisely what the underlying purpose of the ADA rejects."
* * *
Because the undisputed facts, even when construed in Crane's favor, demonstrate that Isbell could and did adequately perform her essential duties for over two years with the reasonable accommodation of a 10 a.m. start time, Crane's sudden replacement of that start time with a more onerous schedule without considering her known disability plainly constituted an unreasonable failure to continue to accommodate that disability under the ADA.
Does this mean that employers who offer long-term accommodations are stuck providing them for life? No. One option is for the employer and employee to re-engage in a good-faith interactive dialogue to determine what other accommodation(s) may allow the employee to perform the essential functions of her job.
But, to discontinue an accommodation altogether, an employer will have to demonstrate that the existing accommodation has become an undue hardship.
When to Make the First Offer in Negotiation - PON - Program on Negotiation at
Harvard Law School.
Negotiators are often told not to make the first offer. Because they will be
negotiating against themselves. However, strategically, some fist offers should
be initiated. Under what circumstances?
The "Little Things" That Go On During A Mediation (1/24/14) Jeff Thompson The brain “sees” objects that you don’t perceive. This article teaches you to consider the impact of all of the "Little Things" that go on during a mediation