ADA Explained and (?) Apply to VRS?
26 01 2010All…
Hopefully this will help give clarity to what the [bleep] is going on with problems of VRS industry and federal governments (mainly FCC, though).
Check this out…
Title I covers employment.
Does that mean companies/businesses who have deaf/hoh should pay for Interpreters to do conference calls? The problem is most companies will not do that cuz it is expensive. Cheaper to go through VRS. Hence this dilemma VRS and federal agencies are having now.
Title II Part A covers public entities. So does that mean webinars, podcasts, etc should be covered under this? The problem is will these providers of webinars, podcasts, etc be willing to provide an interpreter for these? Answer? Likely not.
Title III covers private entitles. Again lot of private telephone services are provided, should that fall under that title III? Answer? Likely not.
Title IV covers telecommunications. Well, it looks like to access telecommunications means to have access to everything that telecommunications offers. So should all the above services indicated fall under this? Several VRS providers seem to think so. See Jeff Rosen’s comment recently on this very issue.
So that’s the dilemma VRS and federal agencies (FCC, DOJ, etc) are having right now.
These problematic issues have gone long enough. I think – no, I know I speak for all of USA deaf/hoh citizen that we’re ready for stability so please please Decision Makers make decision very soon. Remember that some of the VRS providers who "cheated" utilized "functional equivalence" as reasons why these services should be provided.
Clearly VRS industry needs clarity of relay regulations so they can go ahead and provide the services as they should.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
long link:
www.adata.org/whatsada-structure.aspx
Wow – I can almost hear the noises made by rubbing the palms together by those in the legal profession anticipating a rush of legal actions against providers of teleconference, webinars, podcasts etc etc….
Here we go again!!!
Trust in the American way. Trust that there is a natural balance out there. Trust that a good employee is going to have work and a lazy one will be out on the street. Business is not easy, everyone struggles. Businesses go under all the time. A good steady business has to put in hard work to survive and to continue over many years.
I can understand that the Government sees employee training, meetings, in house communications as part of the responsibility of the company as defined by the ADA. The company pays for the accommodation. Using VRS to generate payment for an accommodation and to generate profits to pay salaries is not natural or balanced.
When we have a meeting, we have to pay salaries for everyone involved. If there are five people in the meeting for two hours, salaries alone are a huge cost to an employer. The one or two interpreters salaries in that same meeting are only 20% of the actual cost of the meeting. Generating income through VRS or utilizing VRS to avoid paying the accommodation for that meeting is not an “even” playing field. The practice of hiring people who are deaf and utilizing VRS to generate funds is coming to a halt.
What I see is a lot of great employees who have had a positive work experience who are now available to work for other companies. Hiring those people who are deaf who may have lost their jobs, people who have great experience and worth to the market place should be the bonus in all this. Anyone doing placement out there? (wink)
How in the world can we delete too many loopholes in the ADA law??
We ought to roll our sleeves to make ADA law – easily for deaf/hoh ppl to have better accessibilities related to ph conference…
I completely agree with Jeff’s comment…
Welcome to the American justice system.
Ed –
Appreciate your forum as a way to get the word out to the community about how their access to relay has been reduced as result of FCC witholding tens of millions of dollars of compensation while they have a unknown and prolonged review of calls – some VRS providers are actually now denying customers from making some type of calls because they are not being compensated for them.
My view is very basic. I want the right we have under Title 4 of the ADA, functional equivalency in telecommunications. If Mr. John Q. Public can use his phone without a second thought to call into a conference call, I want the right to do the same through VRS. If John can use his phone to access information from a webinar, podcast or online course, I want the right to do the same thing through VRS. If John can use his phone to communicate with a company’s technical support, I want the right to do the same thing through VRS.
YES its important to protect the integrity of the TRS Fund which pays for VRS. NO, our ADA rights are not decided by the size of the TRS Fund.
I’m all for greater enforcement under Titles 1, 2 and 3 of the ADA to ensure that deaf people are able to obtain accommodations to access opportunities at work, to governmental services and in public places. However, there is absolutely no legal basis for saying that our rights to telecommunications access under Title 4 should be discarded in favor of placing the responsibility on employers, governmental agencies and places of public accommodation under other provisions of the ADA. I would be shocked of deaf people and other members of our community would suggest this, dont folks understand the reality of a majority of Federal judges are conservative and they have narrowed our ability to obtain accommodations under the ADA, dont folks understand we are in an environment of our unacceptably high unemployment rates – NY Governor David Paterson has said that the unemployment rate of deaf people are as high as 90% in this country. We need every tool we can get to achieve the ADA’s promise of equal opportunity, including VRS. The Obama Administration and its FCC need to hold fast to ADA principles while managing the TRS Fund.
-Jeff Rosen
Herein lies the rub- Title IV covers access the telecommunications network. Proponents, for many years, have determined that conference calls using telephone lines is covered under this act. The reason is that people are actually using the nations telephone network to access these conference calls to an outside line. Therefore, the law was designed to achieve functional equivalency through this network. Now, the FCC has decided to enter a new grey area by determining that conference calls are outside of this telecommunications web and are an internal responsibility for within the company providing these services. Does this mean that the FCC will undo 20 years of reimbursement for these types of calls?
Does this mean that the Deaf person, once again, has to advocate for themselves for access to these conference calls, podcasts, and anything else that is “supposedly” under the realm of the telecommunications network?? As you can see with the current situation with captioning of internet based media, this self-advocacy in today’s world is a very painful and long drawn out process, in which there are very little victories.
I hope not, because that is akin to going back to the pre-ADA years for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. I have not been impressed with the current FCC administration yet. Hopefully they will have a chance to impress us all with something that makes sense.
We will have to pay the service. Or they will find a way to use ads on VRS while we’re on call.
I mention about my blog about “In future: Me think VP will have Ads”
http://illustrator.blog-alloon.com/archives/512
Scot: I don’t think the FCC is entering this grey area. The FCC has not announced anything. I believe this discussion started after my comments elsewhere on the applicability of Title IV to reasonable accommodations typically provided under other Titles.
As for the actions or inactions on behalf of the FCC in regards to internal conference calls, I believe the FCC is doing what it is doing because of the investigations which apparently are still ongoing by OIG, FBI, and the DOJ. I think they are exploring into whether these internal conference calls were fabricated to pump up the revenue. This is clearly a grey area here. How do we determine which conference calls held by an employer are legitimate? Should the FCC accept the providers at face value? After Viable, do you really blame them?
I offered this interpretation of the ADA as a solution to this problem of deciding which calls are legitimate. I am only referring to conference calls made on behalf of the employer. In other words, these calls would not have been made except for the employer. This is clearly a big issue with VRS providers submitting call records of their own internal calls.
How do you suggest we solve this problem? Obviously, taking the providers’ word at face value isn’t an option anymore, unfortunately.
As you think about solutions, keep in mind the question of whether it’s appropriate for VRS providers to profit from their own internal calls? I’m appalled that none of the providers find anything unethical about this, seriously. Where is the intergity here?
As matter of fact I learned recently that you cannot have a third party with the VP with the doctor, deaf patient in the hospital or in the doctor’s office with VP or VRI. The FCC makes thing tough for the Deaf community thruout U.S. This VRI is a blessing if the hospital or the doctor or nurse cannot find a qualified interpreter. So please tell me if that is true. We Deaf must stand up and fight for our rights. If the hearing person goes in hospital or doctor’s office and get equal communication access while the spanish people can get Spanish translator. I think that is unfair. I hope we wake up and fight for our civil rights in having equal communication access. Tell us what we must do. I already fought with s the DOJ, ADA region in Atlanta, GA, the U.S. Human Resources on the letter that my family doctor wrote a letter to me and told me the doctor couldnt afford to hire and pay for the qualified interpreter. It took me 6 yrs. on this case and the only think I got was $750.00 from the doctor and I thought would get more than that. For a long time the same doctor did hire me qualified interpreter at his office for physical check up. I asked the South Carolina protection and advocacy for the disability (SCPA) why I get less money, he or SCPA told me South Carolina is a very conserative state. I almost gave up on this case. I suffer with my family doctor, he wrote me a letter saying he no longer serve me as a patient and asked me to look around and find another family doctor. That is not right he violated my civil rights and I got so emotion about this case for a long time. You tell me what I should have done. I am not sure.
Sam the Deaf: the ADA says that we can be billed for VRS or any other relay service at a rate no greater than the equivalent for hearies. With TRS, it was a lot easier because of phone-line subscriptions, but with VoIP and other ways to make calls, it becomes a lot more complicated. However, this shouldn’t stop the providers from leasing their VPs at a cost to its users on per a monthly rate or something like that. Other options could include subscriptions, use of special features that typically cost extra $, etc.
Just had another thought: once VRS becomes completely mobile, what would one do about bringing such phones into hospitals, educational institutions, public hearings, etc. as my own personal interpreter? Is that permissible? Would that get the hospitals, schools, and governments off the hook in regards of providing effective communication, a mandate of the ADA?
The ADA and Section 504 and The Communications Act were all written long before VRS technology existed. That means – no matter how much we all argue here – there is no clear intent in the law as it applies to using VRS under the circumstances Ed described. It becomes a matter of “interpretation” and that means lawyers and judges and YEARs.
The correct solution is to ask Congress to amend the laws cited to provide clear legislative intent.
Of course, if we open up the ADA to new legislation, it could get gutted the way that Health Care Reform has been gutted ….
We all know the problem – manufactured conference calls and deaf individuals being paid to listen to podcasts.
If you eliminate the selection of a default provider, and route calls to a random interpreter, you eliminate most of the fraud. Legitimate webinars and podcasts and conference calls won’t bankrupt the TRS fund.
What you can’t have is employees at a VRS provider being pulled off legitimate calls to create an income conference.
My resonse to jk-II:
There was never an issue with using tty relay with calling into conference calls, recorded information or anything that we are now arguing about for VRS. Nevermind that theres long distance rates associated with tty relay calls; like hearies deaf can use 800 numbers or calling plans to get free or very cheap minutes to make long distance calls. You could call as long as you wanted through tty relay and noone said boo.
Why? Because serving tty relay is much cheaper than the rate for VRS. People are freaking out about the sensitivities about the TRS fund and having a complete different dialogue abouit our civil right to accessble tecommunications. Got news for folks. I’ve talked with the FCC Commissioners and/or their staff and key Congressional members and/or their staff. I asked them all point blank, are you concerned about the growing size of the TRS Fund or about some people defrauding the TRS Fund with schemes to generate minutes. Each one of them replied that their objection was about the fraud, not the size of the TRS Fund. In fact, there is plenty of funds left in the TRS Fund due to excessive projections of VRS minutes. So lets focus on eliminating the fraud, not hurting our community by reducing our ability to use VRS as is our right.
We are still very early in our VRS experience. With video phone distribution and installations e are nowhere near the over hundreds of thousands of TTYS everywhere in America. Great number of people still dont have access to VPs and therefore VRS, including deaf blind, people with low income and cant afford internet, people with limited english proficiency, people in rural areas, and so on and on. Growing VRS is a good and right thing that needs to happen, no one needs to apologize or be concerned about their advocacy for more accessible telecommunications.
-Jeff Rosen
CNW,
I feel I need to point out that FCC can indeed tell if the calls are from VRS staff or not.
I also need to point out that lot of calls that were held back “pending review” were by deaf/hoh outside of VRS providers. It is the frequency of conference calls by same person to the same phone number that are held back. As Jeff and others have pointed out, if a hearing person can make these calls number of times then why can’t deaf/hoh do the same?
I’ve said this a few times: “Oh what tangled web FCC has woven into with its relay regulations”. Be trapped with tangled web if you do, and be trapped with tangled web if you don’t.
eyes open & thumbs up…
George Adams,
I am sorry about your story. It looks as if you did all you could do. May I suggest you contact NAD about this? They like to know about these type of thing.
eyes open & thumbs up…
Hmmm. I’m thinking as a deaf business man with manyy deaf people employed in my company, whether or not I’d hire hearing people to work for me. If I had to pay for conference calls, I don’t think I’d want to hire hearing people to work for me. But if I didn’t have to pay for conference calls, then I’d be much more open to making reasonable accommodations to hire hearing people to work for me because it won’t add to the operating cost of my business. And if I was working for FCC, I’m not so sure it’s worth spending thousands and millions of dollars of tax payer money to follow up on ADA violations of deaf people like me who won’t hire hearing people because I don’t want to pay for conference calls. The contribution to the NECA fund by all the telephone companies in America, the costs of which is passed on to the telephone customers is a nice way of sharing the costs of equal access for all Americans with and without disabilities. After all, the hearies need access to us deafies too, especially the creditors and those who want me to pay my bills or want my business.
Now, for my final statement which isn’t going to win friends in the deaf and hard of hearing community. Until we deafies are willing to pay for the VPs and pay the costs of using Internet based phones, we’re not going to have the power of attaining true functional equivalence in telecommunications. I’m willing to pay for VPs with the same features that hearing people pay for their telephones with similar features; but it must be cost equivalent with funding to make up for the difference. I’m willing to pay for using my VP over the Internet at similar costs that hearing people pay for using their Internet telephone via Vonage, VoIP, Comcast, Verizon, etc. Until we attain functional equivalence in paying for the telecommunication devices and services, we will be at the mercy of the perception and thinking of the FCC, the hearies, and the telecommunications industry and VP manufacturers, who have little understanding of our needs.
Larry -
Funny you’ve brought that up – the part about adding costs. Convo is a company that employs nearly 95% deaf people without the call center interpreters, etc.
We’ve always told ourselves
- How do we save the costs and NOT use Convo Relay for our business purposes?
Deaf employees is the answer. We can video with each other and do things like that. So in a way, this is not a fair playing field for the hearing people. That’s how other companies are being run right now – it’s a bit heavy on the other side and there is hesitancy to hire deaf employees – because of added costs.
Robin
Response to Jeff Rosen:
Hi Jeff,
I was not in Congress when they wrote those laws, but I think the Congress looks at anticipated costs when they draft and enact laws.
In 1999, a cost analysis of existing technologies (TTY relay) would have anticipated minimal use of VRS for conference calls and tele-seminars due to the limitations of the technology.
I wonder what the projected cost analysis would be if Congress were drafting the ADA today? I wonder if Congress would adopt a different balance between public paid (taxes) and employer paid (unfunded mandates) if they were writing the ADA and the Communications Act with VRS in mind?
I’m just sayin …
hi ed
forgive an ignorant question – in ur blog entry you wrote:
Title II Part A covers public entities. So does that mean webinars, podcasts, etc should be covered under this?
By public entities you mean govt state and local only right? (schools, libraries, city hall, etc)
ADA Title II does not apply to Federal govt entities and doesnt cover non-govt affliliated public entities
thanks for your alerts
peace
patti
I cannot type…
I meant 1989 not 1999.
I meant minimal use of TRS for conference calls, etc.
I apologize for my lousy typing and poor proof reading.
Lawrence,
I am in complete agreement with paying for our VP usage. I’d not have a problem paying for my usage to cut down on operating costs for VRS companies. I also agree that if we all start paying for it like hearing people do with VoIP or “Magic Jack”, we will have more say in how things are run.
-J.J.