ADA: Starbucks to Pay $75K to Fired Worker (fired a Seattle barista with bipolar disorder)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.starbucksunion.org/node/1764

Starbucks Pays Barista $75,000 in Discrimination Suit
Submitted by SWU on Wed, 06/13/2007 - 4:55pm.

Employment discrimination is illegal. Contact the SWU to protect your rights on the job.

Starbucks to Pay $85K to Fired Worker

SEATTLE (AP) -- Starbucks Corp. has agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the company fired a Seattle barista with bipolar disorder. The EEOC said Wednesday that Starbucks gave Christine Drake extra training and support while she worked as a barista in its Queen Anne-neighborhood coffee shop for more than two years, starting in 2001. But in her third year, new management at the coffee shop discontinued the extra support and then fired her, which the EEOC said violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"Though the case was settled out of court, Starbucks did not admit any wrongdoing. The lawsuit was settled to avoid further time and expense spent on litigation for both parties," said Tara Darrow, a Starbucks spokeswoman.

The EEOC said Starbucks agreed to pay Drake $75,000 and give $10,000 to the Disability Rights Legal Center, which provides lawyers for low-income disabled people facing discrimination. Starbucks will also train managers about illegal discrimination and will give the EEOC information about disability discrimination complaints inside the company for the next year, the commission said.

Shares of Starbucks rose 3 cents to $27.77 Wednesday.

[Horse with no Name]

1. Not sure I am reading this correctly

BUT if they gave her extra training and support for two years--that showed good faith. Going into the third year if you still can't do the job, I'd be hard pressed to side with the employer on this one.

[NMMNG]

4. A person with a disability may require accomodations for the length of their employment

An employer must provide a reasonable accommodation to the known physical
or mental limitations of a qualified individual with a disability unless
it can show that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/psych.html

[DemBones DemBones]

5. She was doing the job. A new manager didn't give her the proper support

and then fired her. Employers cannot do that under ADA.

Suppse you have a physical disability, let's say a severe back problem, that requires you to use a special chair at work and perhaps to get up every half hour and walk down the hall and back. After you've been doing the job for two years, a new manager can't come in and take away your chair and tell you you can't leave your desk all day. That couldn't happen after two weeks, legally.

The idea is not that the disabled person is going to be cured by the accomodations but that they can do the job with suitable accomodations.

[napi21]

2. I'd like to know what "extra training & support" means.

My friends son is bipolar, and his outward display of severe anger certainly isn't appropriate for a coffee shop! I'm actually surprised he's managed to retain several jobs, although he has gotten fired from a few too.

I don't believe in discrimination of any kind, but I'm also not willing to take a side in this case without more info!

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Your friend's bi-polar son and this bi-polar woman are not the same.

She'd had this job for two years so she must not have an anger management problem.

Your friend's son should be getting accomodations for his disability so he can work without getting fired. He may not be suited to working with the public -- the public often treat waitstaff like shit, you know -- but then again maybe he lashes out most at home. Most kids do lash out at home at times, especially at certain ages. But there are surely jobs he can do with proper support and training.

As I said to Horse With No Name, people with physical disabilities may need something like a special chair and the ability to get up and take a short walk several times a day. Some people with disabilities are only able to be at work a few hours a day. I have a neighbor who works for the post office and she's been on that kind of schedule for years. They should just let her retire instead of making her sit at a desk for two hours a day. She had worked for them a long time before she became disabled and she's tried all sorts of therapy for her back but nothing has worked.

A possible modification for someone with bi-polar disorder might be time off work when they have to change medications or are having strong mood swings, like a diabetic might have to be off work when his insuin levels were out of whack, or like anybody would need to stay home with a really bad cold or flu.

[Mamacrat]

7. Type of support?

I am wondering what kind of support they would give someone with bipolar disorder. It's not the same as a special chair or ramp. The only thing I could think of was assuring her hours that would work with her personal circadian rhythm. I understand that can get thrown off with bipolar disorder and can aggravate the condition. Allowing her to work away from people at times might be another thing they could have done, but I'm not sure they could do that given the job.

I found this article: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/285189_starbucks15.html

The EEOC said Drake, now 34, began working at Starbucks in September 2001, and for two years had two different managers who accommodated her by giving her additional time to study to make drinks. They also would let her practice making drinks in the Queen Anne store, and she didn't have to make coffee during peak business hours.

[Traveling_Home]

3. From the determination, ....

whatever support they had been giving her had to have been a REASONABLE accomodation. For a person with a physical disabiity it might be allowing them a chair to sit in when not serving a customer. Whatever support that she had been receiving had to have been working well previously and had to have been cost-effective (Starbucks do not lose $$ for 2 years). They lost a valuable employee because a new manager didn't want to be bothered. That is discrimination. That is why we have the ADA.