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Business's Second Big Win by Mary Johnson April 8, 2002 --
Late on Friday, the Bush Administration finally announced its plan to reduce repetitive-stress injuries in the workplace. Not surprisingly, the Administration's "plan" is for voluntary efforts from industry. The government will do nothing to protect workers from getting carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries -- and will not require businesses to do anything for them once they're injured. "Once again, the administration handed a win to big business at the expense of millions of average workers -- especially women -- who risk workplace injuries every single day," said Senate Labor Committee chair Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D. Mass).
The Americans with Disabilities Act's requirement that employers provide 'reasonable accommodation' was to keep people in their jobs
It's the second big win this year for business fighting against workers with repetitive stress injuries. The first big win came almost three months earlier to the day, on January 8, when the Supreme Court said that Toyota plant worker Ella Williams, who had acquired carpal tunnel syndrome from repeatedly having to lift her arms, didn't qualify as "disabled." Therefore she couldn't ask for the "reasonable accommodation" required of an employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nor, we assume, will anyone else with a repetitive stress injury be able to use the ADA now. Business is very happy about that. Repetitive stress causes disability in millions of American workers -- carpal-tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and lower-back pain that can result from repeated motions at work. Those most severely affected include poultry factory workers, workers in auto assembly plants-- and journalists who type long hours at computer terminals. For years, management and U.S. business interests have fought restrictions on having workers toil at poorly designed computer terminals and on back injury-inducing assembly lines. As one of his last acts in office, Clinton issued workplace rules dealing with these kinds of repetitive stress injuries; they were quickly repealed at the request of business once Bush took office. American workers with conditions like Williams's -- and people with other "nontraditional" disabilities who face discrimination on the job -- are now less likely than ever to even get a chance to make their case in court. Williams is so disabled that she cannot work without accommodation. But she is not disabled enough to receive protection under the ADA, said the Court. "People with impairments that prohibit them from performing manual tasks at work, the Court ruled, do not have a disability. An impairment must limit their ability to perform tasks that 'are of central importance to people's daily lives' (i.e., their private lives)," writes CUNY's Ruth O'Brien. A major argument for passing the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 was that its workplace protections against disability discrimination, and requirement that employers provide "reasonable accommodation," would keep people in their jobs rather than on the disabled rolls, ensuring they remained productive and tax-paying members of society. The Court on Jan. 8, in one fell swoop, removed over a million U.S. workers from that central protection Congress had meant them to have. "Instead of bringing people with disabilities into the workforce, the Supreme Court has kept them out," as O'Brien puts it. Now, it seems, the Bush Administration is doing its best to finish the job. We can only assume that a president whose Daddy insisted that he would see to it that "every able-bodied person worked" prefers his disabled Americans on the disability dole, getting benefits, rather than remaining at their jobs as productive members of the economy. Of course it's anybody's guess whether someone like Williams would qualify as "disabled" under our benefits systems either. Perhaps the plan is for people like her -- and the thousands of others who still have no protection against ergonomic injuries on the job -- to sit at home, jobless and without benefits either. It's the American Way.
The Toyota case has provoked little discussion among disability activists. The problems with reasonable accommodation faced by workers with repetitive stress injuries is rarely addressed by the movement; and the promises of the Americans with Disabilities Act remain largely unrealized for today's injured workers. Read The Supreme Court's Catch-22
Posted April 8, 2002
Mary Johnson edits Ragged Edge magazine.
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