Fewer complaints than expected were filed against the nation`s employers in the first month since the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday.
A total of 248 complaints charging employers with disability-based discrimination against employees or job seekers were filed at EEOC offices around the country. The complaints will be investigated by the agency, which then will recommend what action should be taken, including the possibility of taking employers to court.
Four complaints were filed against employers in Illinois, ranking the state among those with the fewest complaints. Texas, with 39, was the nation`s leader for disabled-related job-discrimination filings.
The ADA has sweeping provisions that grant civil rights protection in accommodations, accessibility and employment for the nation`s estimated 43 million disabled people. Of that number, about 1.5 million are estimated to live in Illinois.
A key aspect of the law went into effect July 26. That was the provision prohibiting discrimination in the hiring and promotion of people with disabilities at companies with 25 or more employees. By July 1994, companies with 15 or more employees must comply with the provision.
What separates the law from others addressing the rights of the disabled is a provision allowing suits against alleged offenders. It is this provision that has triggered the most concern among employers, many of whom expressed fears it would result in a flood of lawsuits.
Before a complaint can be taken to court, it must go before the EEOC or a state agency, such as the Illinois Human Rights Commission, which must investigate the charge.
Either the commission or the individual then can decide to take the issue to court.
So far, no flood of lawsuits has resulted. In fact, at the EEOC the number of ADA-related complaints was tiny when compared with the thousands of employment discrimination complaints the commission fields each month.
For example, in the first three months of this year, the agency handled more than 50,000 job-related discrimination complaints on issues including race, gender, AIDs and age discrimination.
That there were so few disability-related complaints was surprising, an EEOC spokeswoman said: ”We were definitely prepared for a marked increase in the number of charges that would come in.”
”When you`re dealing with a new law, and one that is as wide-reaching in scope as the ADA, a month really isn`t enough time to take an adequate measure,” said a disabled woman who works in downtown Chicago.
Others who work with the disabled said the fact the law went into effect in late summer may have slowed the number of filings.
Even more important is the fact that the new law is not retroactive, said Shirley Ellis at the Chicago EEOC office.
”The alleged discrimination had to have taken place on July 26 or after,” she noted.
But while the number of complaints filed hasn`t skyrocketed, interest in the new law has.
Since the law went into effect, the EEOC and other public and private agencies dealing with discrimination have been flooded with calls.
The EEOC`s employment-information hotline is averaging 1,000 calls a week just on ADA-related concerns. The agency said that of the 3,258 calls received in the first week of August, more than 1,000 were about the ADA.
It is expected that the number of complaints will increase in coming months.
As for the first month`s filings, Texas was not the only state with double-digit complaint numbers. Also in that circle were North Carolina, with 18; Tennessee, 17; Virginia, 16; California, 13; New York, 11; and Louisiana and Ohio, 10 each.
States with the fewest filings were: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia, each with one complaint;
Kansas and New Jersey, 2; Colorado, Washington, South Carolina, 3;
Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania, 4; Kentucky, 7; New Mexico and Oklahoma, 8; and Alabama, 9.
