Sandy Springs-based UPS has agreed to pay $2 million to 88 current and former employees to resolve a disability discrimination lawsuit and to cover related administrative charges, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit in 2009, charging that UPS did not provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities to enable them to perform their jobs, in violation of federal law.
The EEOC also alleged that UPS fired disabled employees automatically after they reached 12 months of leave, and did not work individually with employees for reasonable accommodations as required by law.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois over issues involving employees and former employees in the Chicago area.
The EEOC said UPS also agreed to update its policies on reasonable accommodation, improvement implementation of the policies and train those who administer disability accommodation processes.
“UPS has now made changes which will allow more people to keep their jobs,” said EEOC Chicago district director Julianne Bowman in a written statement.
UPS also agreed to submit periodic reports to the EEOC on the status of every accommodation request for the next three years.
The company said the settlement recognizes that it “has a robust ADA accommodation in place, along with one of the more generous and flexible leave policies in Corporate America.”
UPS said it also has an ADA accommodation process to assist employees in returning to work.
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