Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Paper
By: Mary Bell
University of Phoenix
Professor: Edna Wilkerson
HCS/341

Working is a way of life in all cultures. Regardless of where you live, you will find people working hard for various reasons and various responsibilities. Some people work just for a mortgage, car note, car insurance, food, and health insurance. Others may work for less or more reasons and responsibilities. Whatever the reason for working, we can all agree that working is necessary to provide for yourself and also for your family. In most occupations, especially in America, we will find that there are all kinds of legal, safety, and regulatory issues at work in the Human Resource Department. Usually, in the beginning of the hiring process, a manager will instruct the new hire to read all the Code of Ethics, Code of Conducts, and Human Resource Guide which in turn should help to benefit the employee because he/she understands the rules and regulations and can become better equipped with the knowledge gained. In the workplace, we have all sorts of safety issues to watch for. Many of us must watch a video on properly handling packages and bending the correct way when picking up items that are potentially heavy and can injure you if neglecting to follow the safety procedures. We have to make sure that we are aware of the exits in the building, water spills, and ladders being out of place and making sure that we are taking precaution every time we clock in to work our shifts. Legal and safety issues are great to understand but what happens when the two collide? As an example, What if you were working as a Restaurant Manager and you are to wear slip resistant shoes to ensure proper balance and less falls. Now, what if you happen to fall while on the job and it is not any fault of your own? We now get to see the legal and safety issues collide and now we have regulatory matters we must attend to. This means if you fall, your supervisor may feel bad that you fell and hurt yourself but due to regulatory matters the supervisor has to take control and direct the fall according to the rules. All compassion and commonsense is now out the window. Now that you have fallen and injured yourself, your supervisor has to treat you like an injury case and less like an employee. The reason for this is due to the fact that workers compensation may come into view with this fall. If you are going to be out of work for some time, you now are a liability to the company. All your medical expenses for this injury will now be paid but your employer and also 60% of your income will now be paid by the employers even though you are not able to work. In many cases, legal matters such as this can turn quite ugly and lead to court and settlement cases. Commonsense would tell the employer that an employee has fallen and injured herself, so now I need to pay to make sure this employee is able to come back to work for me at a later date. Compassion would tell the employer, “Wow, my employee has fallen and injured herself, I hope she is alright and I hope she has money available to support her family until workers compensation kicks in. Because an injury on the job is serious, the employer has to contact his insurance company. Once this contact has been made, the insurance company is looking out for the best interest if the company, not the employee that has fallen. Once the employee is taken to the hospital, based on further examination, it is clear that employee turned patient is facing disability. The patients back is herniated and also has a lumbar sprain. With this type of diagnosis, the patient is going to need help walking and getting around doing normal everyday tasks until her back is healed. Now, even though it is possible that in the future, the employee can return to work, she will be listed as disabled. Even though the employee is now a liability to the company, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the employer has to let the employee return to work and remain with the company until termination is completed. If you live in Georgia, Georgia is a right to fire state, so an employee can be terminated for no reason at all. Once the employee is ready to return to work the employer must make sure her civil rights are not violated. (Adler, B.) She has certain restrictions that prevent her from completing her job. Requirements for the position are that the employee be able to lift 25 pounds over her head and stand for long hours. Due to her injuries she can now do neither. Common sense would tell the employer to place her in a position with the same pay rate so she can complete some of her tasks while another associate does the tougher work. The ADA, Congress recognized that physical and mental disabilities in no way diminish a person’s right to fully participate in all aspects of society, but that people with physical or mental disabilities are frequently precluded from doing so because of prejudice, antiquated attitudes, or the failure to remove societal and institutional barriers. (Bush, G.) Even though the employer has to rearrange the work schedule for the employee that was injured on the job, the employer in no way can use discrimination against the employee. (Freedman, A.) Americans with disabilities are still targeted by businesses and many times employers refuse to hire potential applicants due to liabilities. Many employers feel like they have to baby sit the disabled employee and think of the worst happening on the job. My hope is that employers understand that there are many tax breaks available for hiring disabled employees and it may qualify their business for additional tax benefits such as: deduction for costs of removing barriers to the disabled and elderly, disabled access credit and work opportunity tax credit.

References
Bush, G. (1990). American with Disabilities
Website: http://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm

Adler, B. (2010). Did the ADA hurt Americans with Disabilities
Website: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/05/did-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-hurt-some-people-with-disabilities.html

Freedman, A. (2010). What is the ADA?
Website: http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/what-is-the-americans-with-disabilities-act.aspx