Starbucks May be Planet Friendly, but it Sure Isn't People Friendly...

Starbucks was recently charged by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with failing to provide an employee with a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. The fact that Starbucks refused to allow one of its barista's a stool to assist her with her job (she suffers from dwarfism) is in sharp contrast to the way that Starbucks portrays itself on its official website. At Starbucks.com, the company claims that, "in every place that we’ve been, and every place that we touch, we've tried to make it a little better than we found it." Apparently that does not apply to its employees.

According to the EEOC's suit, the disabled employee, Elsa Sallard, has a physical impairment, dwarfism. She was hired by Starbucks to work in a customer service position July 2009, but was only allowed to train for 3 days before she was fired. The job description for the barista position stated that no prior experience was required. Soon after being hired by Starbucks, Sallard asked to use a stool or small stepladder to perform the essential functions of preparing orders and serving customers at the counter. Starbucks disregarded Sallard’s request and refused to consider her use of a stool or stepladder. The same day that Sallard requested the accommodation, Starbucks terminated her employment, claiming that she could pose a danger to customers and employees.

Such alleged conduct violates Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in hiring, firing, job application procedures, advancement, compensation, job training and other terms and conditions of employment. The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees’ and applicants’ disabilities as long as this does not pose an undue hardship. Moreover, the ADA requires the employer to engage in a collaborative process in order to determine whether other accommodations may be available to better suit both parties. Apparently, this did not take place.

As such, the EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. More to follow on this one...

If you believe that you have suffered from discrimination in your employment, please consult an attorney right away. The statute of limitations on both the federal and state claims is quite short.

DRAGON DICTATION

I know that this topic is not really about the law, but what you learn from this article can certainly be helpful to attorneys and non-attorneys alike. I recently read an article in the ABA Journal which talked about the top ten apps (for those non-technologically advanced - this is an application that can be used on most smart phones) for attorneys and learned that there was an app out there called Dragon Dictation. Now, for those of you who have immediately turned your nose up at the notion of using any product that is evenly remotely similar to Dragon Speak (a difficult and time-consuming computer software that is supposed to allow you to speak into a microphone and have the software type as you speak), let me tell you I understand your hesitation... my nose also went in the air the moment I saw that Dragon Dictation was created by the same developers as Dragon Speak (Nuance). My curiosity, however, got the better of me and I went searching in the Itunes App Store on my Iphone for Dragon Dictation. Once I found it, I was surprised to see that it was a "FREE" application. Of course, I also thought it was probably FREE because it was horrible.

Well, I am here to tell you that I was wrong! The application downloaded quickly and the interface was simple. I did not need to read any directions on how to use it; use was self-explanatory. I simply pressed the "dictate" button and starting talking. I said the proper punctuation at the end of sentences and the Dragon Dictation program was smart enough to realize that it was punctuation and not a word. On the first try, my sentence was perfect. Once I was done, I pressed a button to the right of the screen and up popped my choices of what to do with the perfectly punctuated sentence... my choices were sms (text message), email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I chose "sms" for my first try and up popped my text message screen prompting me to choose the recipient of my first ever Dragon Dictation text message. After choosing a recipient, I pressed "send" and away my message went.

This app is great. I would highly recommend it. Since installing it last week, I have used it for text messages, emails and I even dictated a short client letter and emailed it to my secretary for final review and sending.

I'd say give it a try, it's FREE and it works like a charm.