[Ohio-talk] Follow-Up To My Email About Red Roof Accessibility Issues From Last November; All Input Welcome

Tue Apr 3 23:05:05 UTC 2018

Will do. Helping my stepdaughter out. How’s your schedule look tomorrow?

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> On Apr 3, 2018, at 4:39 PM, Richard Payne via Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> West I can help with this please contact me.
> 
> Richard Payne,  President
> National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
> 937-396-5573or 937/829/3368
> Rchpay7 at gmail.com
> The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
> characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
> expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles
> between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want;
> blindness is not what holds you back
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Wes Derby via
> Ohio-Talk
> Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:31 PM
> To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Wes Derby <ufofanatic at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Ohio-talk] Follow-Up To My Email About Red Roof Accessibility
> Issues From Last November; All Input Welcome
> 
> Hello, Fellow Federationists. This may be mainly for President Payne, but
> I'm interested in any thoughts from the rest of the organization.
> 
> A quick update on the Red Roof Inn Human Resources system I emailed about in
> late November.
> 
> First, President Payne...I apologize for not getting with you. After I sent
> that, we had sort of a whirlwind of activity in my home. I was hospitalized
> for seizures, my daughter came for her first visit, I got married, and...All
> that fun stuff. Let me know if we should still hook up by phone or private
> email on the original issue. The best ways to reach me are this email, or by
> text/iMessage/call at 614-828-7602.
> 
> A quick recap: We have a time-off/scheduling system known as WFO or WFM,
> depending on which department you're in. Our previous system, EmPower,
> worked pretty well with JAWS. This system was put in place in mid-May of
> 2016, shortly after I started with the company. When an employee wants to
> use PTO, or request VTO, or schedule trades, or anything like that, they log
> in, fill out the form, and get it submitted. If a JAWS-using employee wants
> to do any of this, we have to email staffing and/or our escalation teams and
> hope someone enters the request. It puts blind employees at a disadvantage
> especially since most things are first come/first serve when it comes to
> time off or other requests. So, if you submit your request, but the
> supervisor or staffing department doesn't get to it for a few hours, and a
> sighted person submits his/her request online themselves, you're likely to
> NOT get yours approved, though you may have sent your email before the
> sighted person logged in and independently submitted his/her request.
> 
> The company is aware of the inaccessibility, but can't/won't do anything to
> fix it. Our Good Will/Easter Seals job coach claims there's a WAY JAWS users
> can do it, but thought it would be too complicated, so has never given us
> the instructions for doing so.
> When I originally posted this, a couple people suggested NVDA.
> However, the system is on a tight enough lockdown that installing NVDA isn't
> possible without admin rights. In addition, since you have to be logged into
> the company VPN to use the system, it can't be independently tested from an
> outside computer running newer browsers and newer versions of JAWS.
> 
> To me, it's an accessibility barrier. Many of my fellow JAWS users, and one
> past employee who used JAWS, feel the same way I do. Some are content with
> the status quo, but most of us are not. The main problem is, most are afraid
> to speak up. I'm not afraid, only because between my wife's income, starting
> my own business, and what I get on SSDI, if they want to use me as an
> example, I can afford the risk...Most of the others can't. So, I'm sort of
> the lone wolf sccreaming out for changes to be made. LOL
> 
> Now, in addition to the WFO issues, many of us JAWS users are experiencing
> extreme slowness with the various applications we use in our departments.
> The JAWS users are the only ones still using IE9.
> They've tried updating us, but then, the scripts written for us fail to
> function, so we're stuck until the company decides to go to JAWS
> 2018 and update our systems. Our concern is that perhaps many of the
> web-based applications we use are phasing out support for Internet Explorer
> 9, which is understandable since it's ancient.
> 
> I learned yesterday that our JAWS sccripter, Mark Tudela, is supposedly
> coming in soon to do some scripting work. My supervisor is hopeful that he
> will be scripting JAWS 2018 so we can move up, but he isn't sure. His hope
> is to get all the blind employees onto the same operating system everyone
> else is on, and using Chrome instead of IE, which is possible in newer
> versions of JAWS. The company will supposedly be looking into paying for the
> upgrades, though still having us use our personal licenses. Of course, I
> already paid for my own upgrade, but that's probably not relevant.
> 
> I'm glad to see they're getting Mark in there as the last I'd heard from one
> of the corporate IT guys, the reason JAWS users weren't being upgraded is
> because the company was supposedly trying to find someone less expensive to
> do the scripting, but having no luck. Glad they apparently came to their
> senses on that score.
> 
> I just wanted to update everyone on the situation. Not sure if the upgrades,
> when and if they come, will help us with WFO, but, here's hoping.
> 
> What further advocacy steps should myself, or others who aren't afraid to
> speak up, take? How, if at all, can we get the Federation involved in this
> as Red Roof does employ quite a few blind people in our state?
> 
> 
> 
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