[Nfbc-info] Laws Concerning People With Disabilities In The Workplace Do's And Don'ts

[Michael Hingson]

Chela,

By any definition, Aira is a reasonable accommodation. While you want, and
should, use Aira to gain information that helps you with travel do not
forget that Aira can help you obtain other information such as reading items
unreadable easily in other ways. As you point out Aira can help read room
numbers and so on. By the way, one question to ask your boss is why students
are not using Aira. You also are right in that you are an employee and not a
student. In either case reasonable accommodations under the ADA are
appropriate.

If you want to talk about any of this please give me a call. You have my
number. 


Best Regards,


Michael Hingson

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBC-Info [mailto:nfbc-info-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chela
Robles via NFBC-Info
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2017 7:27 PM
To: NFB of California List <nfbc-info at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Chela Robles <cdrobles693 at gmail.com>
Subject: [Nfbc-info] Laws Concerning People With Disabilities In The
Workplace Do's And Don'ts

Hello everyone who has studied the laws concerning people with Disabilities
and the ADA.
I need a crash course before January 8th 2018 in this subject matter.
I was recently employed on November 3rd 2017 as a Braille Transcriber for a
public school in San Jose, not going to say the names of people and school
due to the utmost respect and sincerity and loyalty to my first employer for
my first job.
I've run into a dilemma in which I feel like I'm being discriminated against
for leveraging a certain technology called Aira for independently traveling
safely throughout the campus which has lots of twists and turns and
buildings are placed at random not to mentioned I almost got injured a few
times at that campus just walking around, and other people not watching out
where they are going, so in order to avoid being injured while traveling, I
utilize Aira for safely navigating me and I've not been injured since
starting to use this wonderful technology service to make independence
happen for the blind, knowing fully well that it doesn't replace any
mobility skills I have with the cane and I always use the cane along with
Aira which only enhances the experience to not allow unfortunate
circumstances to happen.
My problem is this:
My boss, who is not the principal, tells me I should not have to use Aira on
the campus and when I asked her why not, she told me that none of the other
blind students use it and that I should not use it as well, well I'm her
employee, not her student, big difference there and I pay for this service
myself and can use it as I see fit to use it if I feel like I'm lost and
noone else is around to straighten me out most of the time I go out of the
office to go somewhere on the campus, yet she wanted me to learn the whole
campus, then changed her mind and just told me to learn how to get to every
student's room number for their respective classes and keep in mined there
are 16 of them that are blind in different grades in high school, then
recently she just wants me to know where each building is, and that doesn't
help that I don't have a tactile map yet, and even if I did, a tactile map
is still scaled down, yes? So, the next best thing is to take Aira to keep
finding out which building is 1000, which building is 100, 200
400 300, ETC, no room numbers now, but she wants me to find these buildings,
and know how far they are and where they are in relation to one another but
the problem is that the campus is laid out in a funky way and I cannot fully
explain, but I know the O&M trainer I work with at that campus could
describe it well, so all in all, I feel discriminated against for using
something that will leverage my being able to travel independently at this
huge campus where anyone, sighted and blind can get lost in minutes, and
what I have counts as a reasonable accommodation. I've already emailed my
DOR counselor about this and carbon-copied the O&M trainer who works with me
there to be aware of the situation. My counselor wants a meeting with me
after the holiday/winter break and I get back the 8th of January to work,
just recently started O&M training at that campus and my trainer tells me to
still utilize Aira when I get lost. I think that my boss thinks using Aira
is not making me be independent, when the fact is that is truly is making me
independent.
Thoughts, suggestions, anyone want to teach me the necessary laws concerning
workers with disabilities? I'll have you know I'm her first employee ever
and a totally blind one at that that travels
3 hours each way from Concord, California to San Jose, California and back,
utilizing my parents to take me to and from the Mitchel Park and Ride in
Walnut Creek, where I either meet the 92x bus to go to the Pleasanton Ace
Train station, then at Diridon San Jose Station, I hail an Uber Pool, and go
to the school to work for 6 hours a day five days a week keeping in mind no
benefits package, there and back, I reverse the route going home, I wake up
at 4AM those days and go to bed around 9PM and get home sometimes at 7PM
sometimes 6:15PM give or take traffic.
Thanks for any assistance you can offer. I was told that the NFB can fight
for people's individual rights if their rights are not being met so that is
why I'm coming to you guys.
Thanks and have a great day and I look forward to talking with you soon.
Sincerely,
Chela Robles
Braille Transcriber

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