[Ohio-talk] Workplace Accessibility/Assistive Tecch; Looking for input, possibly legality of an issue

[Wes Derby]

Good Evening, Fellow Federationists.

First, I want to say thanks for accepting me into NFB of Ohio. It was
great to meet those I met at convention, and I look forward to many
more to come.

I apologize in advance as this will get long and may ruffle a few
feathers. To try and sum it up, I'll provide a link to a blog post I
wrote a few months ago on the topic for a more in-depth read. it's
regarding a piece of software to which our sighted peers have access,
but the JAWS users do not.

Basically, my employer, Red Roof Inn Contact Center, hires several of
us who are blind. Most of us work from home. Thanks to the company
hiring a JAWS scripter,  most systems we use are pretty
JAWS-friendly...Though we're still running on JAWS 14 with Internet
Explorer 9. Most of us are also using our personal JAWS licenses as
the company does provide the computer, but requires each employee's
JAWS serial number...But, I digress.

The one system that is fairly inacccessible with the systems we have
is WFO/WFM (Work Force Optimization, sometimes called Work Force
Management). This is the system used to check your PTO balance,
request time off, and request VTO (Voluntary Time Off when it's
slow/dead). Our sighted colleagues can do this themselves, no problem.
If you are a JAWS user, you have to have someone from staffing or from
your escalation department enter the requests for you...This is great,
as long as someone sees your email quickly. Due to them not always
being see timely, I know it's caused me one unexcused absence as there
was time available when I sent the request, but because a sighted
colleague entered her request an hour before someone got around to
mine, I got the UA for a sick day.

>From what we've been told by the Good Will Easter Seals of Miami
Valley job coach provided for the JAWS users, the system is not
JAWS--friendly. Later, we were told the requests CAN be made with
JAWS, but the GWESMV worker decided that based on her experience, it
would be too complicated for a JAWS user. Though it IS web-based, the
request system does not behave normally with JAWS and the version of
IE we're running. This is the same person who told me the same about
the previous system, which I mastered in about ten minutes, though she
swore it would take hours.

So, what I'm wondering is, is the way the company is handling this
system acceptable from an accessibility standpoint, or am I right to
be irritated by it? I'll be the first to admit I could be making
something out of nothing...But I also like to do as much as I can
independently.

There are two camps of blind employees at the center, I've
noticed...Some of the older folks are perfectly content to not learn
the system, and to let staffing or Escalation enter requests for them.
There are a few of us, however, who'd like the ability to do it
ourselves with JAWS as our sighted counterparts can. The GWESMV worker
in question finally told us in July, 14 months after this system was
implemented, that though it was complicated, it may be able to be done
with JAWS...However, she has not written up the instructions because
she'd have to do so on her own time as she doesn't have a Red Roof
client in training currently. My thought is, as soon as she determined
it was maybe possible, she should've given that information to us and
let us decide for ourselves if we were capable of figuring it out or
not. The company has provided no response to the email exchanges on
our JAWS list about fixing the system or hiring the scripter if
necessary to do so...They tend to defer to the GWESMV worker's
judgment when it comes to accessibility. Honestly, if I'd deferred to
her judgment, I would not have the position I have now because at the
time, the software wasn't scripted for JAWS. But, since I knew I was
qualified for the job, I went for it anyway against her advice, got
it, and am doing pretty well.

Anyway, sorry this was so long. Here's the blog article I wrote for
some more detail. If anyone has questions or opinions, please feel
free to reply here or send me a message privately.

Thanks!

http://wesderby.net/dont-make-acccessibility-decisions-for-us-without-consulting-us-when-our-advocates-try-to-be-our-decision-makers-and-get-it-wrong/

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