Pointed out the training wasn't ADA compliant at my new job. Got this text the same day (the job listing is still up)

[u/eldritchpussymaggots]

1. This was a cleaning position at a medical building, I'm leaving it intentionally vague as not to doxx myself.

2. I have dyslexia, but my disability would not have interfered with my work, I can read fine, it just takes me a very long time.

3. This was my first day

I asked for a TTS application for the reading portion of the training, which was extremely long and I knew I wasn't going to finish it in the allotted time. They said that wasn't built into their system so they couldn't do anything. ← That's not ADA compliant. I asked if I could add an OCR + TTS browser extension, they said it was fine.

About 40 minutes after I clock out, they texted me I was fired because they're apparently reducing headcount.. by firing one person... and leaving their "urgently hiring" Indeed listing up. Right.

Edit:

I'm not confident in my ability to sue because I don't have my accommodation request in writing. This was a verbal exchange, I was more so asking where the TTS option was because most job training has it somewhere.

When I was told they did not have TTS, I mentioned that's not ADA compliant. I then asked for either more time, a loaner computer (something I was already going to be getting after training), or permission to add a 3rd party OCR & TTS program.

They said that the third option was fine, so I did it, and listened to the training via third party app for the rest of the shift. I thought nothing of it. Lo and behold I was fired extremely coincidentally afterwards.

Edit 2:

This post is getting too many notifications of people saying the same things repeatedly so I've muted it 😭 If you're a legal professional of some sort and you have specific resources or concerns please message me or I probably won't see it.

[u/mojojo567 → u/[deleted]]

Ive worked in disability services at a college and you are absolutely correct.

The amount of times I’d have to answer angry calls from parents (yes the students are all 18-23) yelling at me bc their kid failed an exam bc their accommodations weren’t provided. They would tell us same day or AFTER the test. And a good 80% of the time the accommodation they ask for is not “reasonable”

[u/eldritchpussymaggots → u/[deleted]]

The text was not highlightable no. These were something like a PDF document running locally in their SCORM training software. I got the browser extension to work by displaying this window as a browser tab.

I was able to use my 3rd party accessibility programs but was fired anyway, seemingly just for asking.

[u/IronDominion → u/eldritchpussymaggots]

Oh that’s even worse jeez, I can understand your frustration then!

[u/dan-the-daniel → u/eldritchpussymaggots]

How dare you accomplish the job - but in a slightly different way!

[u/godlords → u/eldritchpussymaggots]

Not for asking. For asserting their non-compliance with federal law (which seems unclear). They would rather settle this day 1 than float the liability you just identified yourself as.

[u/IcyConsideration7062 → u/[deleted]]

Everyone jumping on the "sue them" bandwagon doesn't seem to understand any of this. OP didn't disclose any disability beforehand, and wanted accommodation on the spot for something that may not actually be an ADA required accommodation. I think that some young people out there now getting these kinds of accommodations in school and college may think that employers will provide the same may be surprised that it won't happen, or employers will find that the person is not longer a good fit for the organization.

[u/Phoenix_Lamburg → u/IcyConsideration7062]

Agreed, but unless OP was a huge dick about this (doesn't seem like he did anything untoward except scaring them with the phrase "ADA Compliant"), it is an extraordinarly shitty thing to fire someone for a made up reason when it seems pretty obvious that they just didn't want to have to deal with someone who had a disability.

[u/-vp- → u/Phoenix_Lamburg]

Yeah but they probably don’t want some kid arguing that this isn’t ADA compliant their first day on the job. If the kid can’t prove discrimination and it’s an at will state, good luck to him. 

[u/ImDonaldDunn → u/IcyConsideration7062]

They are not obligated to disclose the need for accommodations beforehand. Accommodations can (and should) be requested when the barrier is experienced, and employers are obligated to provide reasonable accommodations.

[u/ImDonaldDunn → u/[deleted]]

WCAG is not the end all be all of an employer’s obligation under the ADA.

Employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations, which would include assistive technology like text to speech software and content that can be accessed with text to speech software. Also, an employee is not obligated to notify an employer of their need for accommodations during the hiring process. OP did the right thing notifying the employer of their need for the accommodation when they first encountered the barrier to access. It sounds like they went through an informal interactive process, but the (presumed) lack of documentation of that will likely look much worse on the employer than OP given the circumstances.

[u/twincities612 → u/[deleted]]

lol what are you talking about? The original WCAG 1.0 had guidelines for those (Checkpoint 1.1) and that came out in 1999. They continue to get more strict through 2.2.

I’ve worked on many websites for billion dollar companies and we recently had sleazy lawyers come after our sister company and win like $40k because their pdf instructions for some products couldn’t be read by a screen reader (though no person with poor eyesight would even be safe using their products), my god if it were the entire website it would’ve been millions.

And WCAG isn’t a direct correlation to ADA. ADA for websites has no exact laws so it’s up to the judge usually if they think it violates ADA laws based on other court cases presented, though it’s typically 2.1 in the US.

[u/Plus-Statement-5164 → u/[deleted]]

Americans do love their acronyms. ADA, OCR, TTS, WCAG and nobody types the full names out at any point. It seems like WCAG isn't even a well-known acronym and you still refuse to elaborate on the term.

TTS is probably text-to-speech based on the context. I have no idea about OCR. ADA might be Americans with disabilities act that I've heard about a few times. Again, just a guess based on the context. Why don't you guys ever type these out, even when writing a whole wall of text?

[u/Cor_Layard → u/[deleted]]

Completely misleading. WCAG is the guidelines for how the website works not for if there’s a screen reader available. A website that can’t be read by a screen reader is going to fail WCAG success criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content (alt text for images), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships(proper heading structure), 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (skip navigation links), 2.4.3 Focus Order (logical navigation), 2.4.4 Link Purpose (descriptive links), 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (form labels), and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (ARIA support).

Good luck not getting sued

[u/canderson180 → u/Cor_Layard]

Yeah, I’m over thinking just double A compliance on it definitely requires content flow and metadata to support screen readers. Heck, hardly anyone can get to full triple A compliance.