Posted on 08/30/2011 4:01:59 PM PDT by opentalk
The federal government has sued a major trucking company for its refusal to hire as drivers individuals with admitted alcohol abuse problems.
Alcoholism is classified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the suit maintains, and therefore emploees cannot be prohibited even from driving 18 wheelers due to their histories of abuse.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed the suit against the Old Dominion Freight Line trucking company on August 16, noted that while “an employer’s concern regarding safety on our highways is a legitimate issue, an employer can both ensure safety and comply with the ADA.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.heritage.org ...
I wonder if the same holds true for addicted doctors and nurses?
Great, so when some drunk truck driver kills someone, name the federal government (and Obama, personally) as co-defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit.
We live in interesting times...sad, but interesting.
This policy has been in place for decades. It is insane and a museum quality example of why all liberals need to be purged form positions of power and most of the federal and state governments eliminated.
I doubt it; if you work for the Gubmint, you cannot be denied a job for any reason, or be dismissed for abuse, either. Look at Congress and the White House.....
--If the EEOC prevails, of course, it will mean that Old Dominion will still be liable both for any damage to life or property that results from a potential relapse by one of its recovering drivers –which in turn increases the risks involved in investment in the company –and for the cost of trying to ensure that such damage never occurs.--All of these new burdens will raise Old Dominion’s cost of doing business, and hence the cost of everything they transport. And all of this can’t possibly ensure that a recovering driver does not relapse without the company’s knowledge.
I know a truck driver like this. He’s had about 10 accidents due to alcohol but still has his CDL and the last time was under court ordered rehab. I can’t believe this guy is still driving a truck.
I feel sorry for the innocent lives he’s going to take in the future. You just know that’s coming.
Yeah, as soon as I saw the headline, I knew this was about the ADA.
The ADA has morphed into a stupid federal catch-all to force companies into hiring or keeping employees who have no business having a job.
Case in point: I used to know a manager in CSX’s dispatch center who as hiring new dispatchers. Train dispatchers, if you don’t know, are involved in all kinds of decisions regarding when a train departs a station or railyard, getting them onto the correct track, watching for other trains ahead of them heading in the direction of the train, etc.
Well, one of the people he interviewed was narcoleptic. Whn he didn’t get the job beause of his narcolepsy, he sued CSX and got some idiot judge to force CSX to hire him. But, if CSX hired him, they had to hire someone else to make sure that he would stay awake and not destroy a train or two or kill a couple of hundred people because he fell asleep.
So, to get 1 employee, CSX had to hire 2 people!
Ya gotta love government! I’m almost surprised that zero hasn’t thought about doing this as a way to put people back to work.
The ADA requires reasonable accommodations for the disability. What’s the accommodation for this one? A Co-Driver? A surrogate driver?
Sheesh, the inmates are in charge of the asylum...
This is absolutely CRAZY!!! This world we live in is absolutely upside down.
I know what you mean
Wonder how long before the President's illegal alien, drunk uncle is back on the road.
??WHAT??
What do the Mothers think?? MADD
Sharia will fix this problem.
I think it was Bush 41.
It's finally proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the inmates are running the asylum.
If the "law" says what the ADA says it says, then the law is a ass.
Well that would have been quite a while ago.
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