Department of Labor Making Progress in Disability Employment Rights

Patricia A. Shiu, former Director of Programs at Legal Aid Society–Employment Law Center and current director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, is pushing for big changes in the way that federal contractors make their hiring and employment decisions.

Proposed regulations spearheaded by Director Shiu will require that federal contractors collect information about employees and applicants with disabilities, and take affirmative measures designed to bring the proportion of persons with disabilities in workforces and job categories to at least seven percent.

“What gets measured gets done,” said Ms. Shiu in a recent Wall Street Journal article “And we’re in the business of getting things done.” (Subscribers to the Wall Street Journal can read the article.)

Legal Aid joined comments submitted by the Bazelon Center on behalf of 27 major disability organizations supporting the regulations and seeking to make them even stronger.

View Legal Aid’s comments on the proposed regulations.

View a copy of the Bazelon Center’s letter.

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