Abusive Disability Related Questionaires on Applications (licenses, job application, apply, interview)
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Unless it falls under a protected class it can be hard to dismiss things. For example if a job has a physical requirement then certainly that can be tested. If you try to work in construction but cannot hear forklifts 30 feet away that might be a concern. If someone cannot see in a given function it can be the same. Long ago I tried to enter the military. I passed corrected for eyesight but not uncorrected. Those are the standards they abide by so it is not like I could reverse it.
I've applied to jobs where they ask this since it's a federal contract job and they're required to. Interestingly enough, stuff like Diabetes made its way on there too. However, they don't ask about if you had something before and it would count as one.
There are 3 answers... Yes, No, or I Don't Care To Answer.
I'm always a bit concerned that answer "I don't care to answer" can get you eliminated right off the bat. Sure, it may be illegal, but I still don't want to get eliminated.
Agreed. I have a friend that was born disabled. I'm not exactly everything, but I know she has epilepsy. She's disfigured. I met her in college and she did graduate; 12 years after starting and has been looking for part time work since 2012. No one will hire her. She goes through social workers and works with people to help, but thus far, no luck. It's sad because she really wants to work.
If she ever had no choice but to go on benefits, then a large chunk of the population would call her a lazy bum that doesn't want to work, and give a FREE PASS to the illegal discrimination your friend experienced.
The problem is that it is extremely hard to prove discrimination against an employer for whatever protected class you are talking about. After you file a claim against an employer, come back and let everyone know how the government enforces all the laws, the acts, the whatever that look good on paper. It is a joke. I suppose these employers know that many that are desperate for a job will just go ahead and answer any question for the possibility of employment. Seriously, these are probably the same employers that find a way to dump the employee if a medical condition crops up in the employee or family and, of course, they'll have a different story about why the employee was let go. Better off trying to avoid these loser companies anyway.
Unfreakinbelievable. You mean that because you have never seen such a practice that it does not exist?
What would motivate me to post an apocryphal tale on this forum?
It doesn't matter what would motivate you. I, too, would like to see a link to an actual case before I take your word for it, no matter how many "snips of verbiage" you say you've collected. There are plenty of people here who read text and get an entirely different understanding of it than I do.
Long ago I tried to enter the military. I passed corrected for eyesight but not uncorrected. Those are the standards they abide by so it is not like I could reverse it.
Military is an excellent example. There are stringent physical and health requirements to enter the military.
I just got through commenting on the practice of employers asking for SSNs. Here is another emerging Bullying (and potentially discriminatory) practice.
Some online applications are getting very pushy and aggressive in regard to EEO questionaires having to do with disability. It is one thing to ask if the applicant has a disability or needs a special accomodation. It is quite another to coerce the applicant into declaring their medical history.
What they are now doing is giving the applicant the standard choice to indicate whether they do or do not have a disability. Then they are stating that even if the applicant has been diagnosed with any of numerous specific conditions (e.g. MS, cancer, heart disease, etc), that prior diagnosis constitutes a disability - whether or not there is active disability. So if the applicant had a prior diagnosis but does not consider themselves to be disabled in any way in the present, they are forced to answer yes, lest they end up lying about their medical history.
How on earth are they getting away this stuff? Where is the government? Oh right, they are too busy snooping on our emails, phone calls, and web activity.
The last job interview I ever went to in the US was for a small civil engineering firm. The interviewer was one of the co-founders of the firm, an older engineer. I knew him because there aren't that many PEs running around, and we had worked together. The only work I'd ever got had been as a consultant, having never been hired as a company employee with benefits, though for years I had tried.
When I was a small child I was severely injured in a crash. The injuries were what they now call 'life changing' and I was left with badly damaged legs. But not so badly damaged that I can't get to work in the morning and do a full day's work (or more). I can walk. This is why I became an engineer. I knew that I'd always be up to the job, even if I became fully disabled.
Never mind. The nice old man -- and he was nice -- explained that he had a full printout of my medical history. He explained that there were services that offered this information for a fee. He went on to explain that if he hired me his employee insurance premiums would go sky high. Furthermore, if I left the company, the premiums would remain high even though the insurance company would no longer be insuring a company with me on the payroll, as explained in this later NY Times piece.
The engineer added that it would be the same anywhere I went, and that my health history would be available to all companies. This was in 2001.
The nice man offered to hire me as a consultant. My husband had just died, and with his death the kids and I had lost our family health insurance. As an individual I was uninsurable, due to my injuries being a 'pre-existing condition'.
It took me six weeks to find a position with a civil engineering company in Scotland, where insurance isn't an issue because we are covered by the Scottish NHS. The only issue was whether I could do the job. I packed the kids, made a huge bonfire of everything else, and we emigrated. When the CD died and the company was dissolved, I was immediately offered a much better job in England, and then France where I now live. (I'm CD now.)
If I had remained in the US the kids and I would be barely surviving on benefits.
Instead I'm a happy citizen of both the UK and France, having renounced my US citizenship, along with my children.
I'm witing this from my beach house in France. I also have a house on several acres in the poshest of the English Home Counties, and a roomy flat in Glasgow's West End. Not bad for a cripple. (Imagine the amount of taxes I pay! )
The conclusion I came to was that nothing that life throws at a person is so bad that the American system can't make worse. My engineering degrees, additional degrees in physics, and MBA were worthless in the US, the direct result of an injury when I was ten years-old.
In May of 2013 I hired an American, a tetraplegic, who had never been able to find work in the US. He runs our IT, and has worked out brilliantly.
As I was writing this my English husband looked over my shoulder, saw what I was writing, and muttered, 'The stranglehold of the medical insurers is going to kill that country'.
Last edited by Juliette La Bretonne; 08-13-2014 at 05:47 AM..
Please cite one specific company where this is the case. I've never sen such a practice.
I went through something similar in 2001. (And no, I'm not going to risk the hassle of naming some litigious American company.)
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She goes through social workers and works with people to help, but thus far, no luck. It's sad because she really wants to work. 
)
