[nagdu] When Treating One Worker's Allergy Sets Off Another's

Tue May 11 23:10:49 UTC 2010

Employers may be faced with difficult issues when the accommodation needs of
one employee interfere with the accommodation needs of another employee. One
such situation occurs when an employee is allergic to a service animal used
by another employee. The following is a summary of accommodations that might
meet the needs of both employees: 

1. Eliminate in-person contact: 
Have the employees work in different areas of the building. 
Establish different paths of travel for each employee. 
Arrange for alternatives to in-person communication, such as e-mail,
telephone, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing. 
Allow flexible scheduling so the employees do not work at the same time. 
Allow one of the employees to work at home or to move to another location. 
2. Minimize exposure if in-person contact cannot be eliminated: 
Provide one of the employees a private/enclosed workspace. 
Use a portable air purifier at each workstation. 
Develop a plan between the employees so they are not using common areas,
such as the break room and restroom, at the same time. 
Ask the employee who uses a service animal if he/she is willing to use
dander care products on the animal regularly. Most veterinarians and local
pet supply stores carry such products. 
Ask the employee who uses the service animal if he/she is willing to
temporarily use other accommodations to replace the functions performed by
the service animal during meetings attended by both employees. 
Ask the employee who is allergic to the service animal if he/she wants to,
and would benefit from, wearing an allergen/nuisance mask. Many local home
improvement or hardware stores carry such masks. 
Have the work area, including carpets, cubicle walls, and window treatments
cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed regularly. 
Add HEPA filters to the existing ventilation system. 
Allow the employee who has allergies to take periodic rest breaks to go
outside, take medication, or to go to the doctor if needed.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Cheryl Osborn
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 1:34 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] When Treating One Worker's Allergy Sets Off Another's

Too bad the paprika lady couldn't have gotten a poodle.  I wonder if a
survey was taken at her place of employment to ask if anyone had an allergy
to dogs.

On 5/11/10, Ginger Kutsch <gingerKutsch at yahoo.com> wrote:
> New York Times
>
> May 10, 2010
>
> When Treating One Worker's Allergy Sets Off Another's
>
> By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
>
> <
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/ste
> ven_greenhouse/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
> http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/stev
> en_greenhouse/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>
>
>
> INDIANAPOLIS - It's a case of King Solomon meets the Americans With 
> Disabilities Act.
>
> In her first week at a new job, Emily Kysel suffered an allergy attack 
> so severe that she had to go home early one day. A co-worker was 
> eating buffalo wings at her desk, and the wings contained paprika, to 
> which Ms. Kysel, 24, has a rare and potentially fatal allergy.
>
> She nearly died five years ago from eating chili, and since then her 
> allergy has sent her to the emergency room five times and caused her 
> to jab herself with an anti-allergy injection 11 times, sometimes from 
> just inhaling paprika nearby.
>
> "It feels like someone poured acid down your throat," she said.
>
> Fearing a fatal encounter with paprika, Ms. Kysel's parents and 
> grandparents chipped in to buy her an allergy-detection dog, which 
> works much like a narcotics-sniffing dog. After she had extensive 
> talks with her employer, the City of Indianapolis, officials gave her 
> permission to take the dog to work. The golden retriever, named Penny, 
> cost her family $10,000 - it jumps up on Ms. Kysel whenever it detects 
> paprika.
>
> On the first day Ms. Kysel took Penny to work, one of her co-workers 
> suffered an asthma attack because she is allergic to dogs. That 
> afternoon Ms. Kysel was stunned when her boss told her that she could 
> no longer take the dog to work, or if she felt she could not report to 
> work without Penny, she could go on indefinite unpaid leave. She was 
> ineligible for unemployment compensation because of the limbo she was 
> put in.
>
> Ms. Kysel filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity 
> Commission < <http://www.eeoc.gov/> http://www.eeoc.gov/> , asserting 
> that her employer had discriminated against her by failing to 
> accommodate her disability. Legal experts say her case raises tough 
> questions about how to balance the sometimes clashing interests of 
> co-workers with disabilities and how far employers need to go to make 
> reasonable accommodations for workers under the Americans With 
> Disabilities Act.
>
> "I was crestfallen, angry," Ms. Kysel said. "I thought I had jumped 
> through all the hoops to get permission, but then it immediately felt 
> they were favoring this other individual."
>
> Greg Fehribach, a lawyer for the city, denied that Indianapolis had 
> violated the law. He said Ms. Kysel's supervisors had gone far to 
> accommodate her, holding a meeting where she explained her allergy to 
> her co-workers, and barring employees from eating foods containing 
> paprika at their desks. Several managers and co-workers have 
> questioned the seriousness of Ms. Kysel's allergy
> - some see it as a quirky, almost laughable oddity. To buttress her 
> case, two allergists wrote letters saying her allergy was life 
> threatening.
>
> While working for the city's Department of Code Enforcement, she had 
> an attack because the tiny snack bar in her office building began 
> serving paprika-laden pulled pork.
>
> One thing that galls Ms. Kysel is that the City of Indianapolis has 
> barred her from using her service animal at work although it allows 
> blind employees to have them.
>
> "I don't think I deserve preferential treatment over anyone," she 
> said. "But I think I deserve equal treatment."
>
> Christopher Kuczynski, assistant legal counsel for the Americans With 
> Disabilities Act division of the equal-employment agency, declined to 
> comment upon her case because it was pending.
>
> But in such situations, Mr. Kuczynski said, "what's important when you 
> have two people with disabilities is you don't treat one as inherently 
> more important than the other."
>
> "What the employer has to do," he continued, "is work out some sort of 
> balance between the accommodations needed."
>
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--
Cheryl in Mexico
chapalacheryl at gmail.com

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