Firms of All Sizes Gear Up to Comply With New Rules : Disabled: Major corporations generally support the new bill, and try to accommodate its terms. The costs worry smaller enterprises.

Businesses big and small are gearing up to accommodate disabled customers and employees in response to Tuesday’s overwhelming congressional support for a bill outlawing discrimination against the mentally and physically handicapped.

Under the bill, business owners will be responsible for providing accommodations for an estimated 43 million Americans with about 900 disabilities of all kinds. The bill requires businesses to make “reasonable accommodations” unless they would impose an “undue hardship” on a business. It exempts businesses with 15 or fewer employees.

Major corporations generally supported the bill, which President Bush is expected to sign when it emerges from a House-Senate conference committee.

Besides ordering businesses to make their services accessible to disabled patrons and prohibiting them from discriminating against disabled job-seekers, the bill entitles those who feel they have been discriminated against to seek remedies through the courts.

“The major problem we still see is that the bill does nothing to limit the liability of a business owner who is truly trying to comply with the law,” said John Motley, vice president and chief lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents about 500,000 business owners.

Organizations representing small businesses had tried and failed to limit the legal liability of business owners.

He said the NFIB is concerned because it will be left up to the courts to decide what is an “undue hardship” on a business owner. “We don’t want to end up with the courts making every single decision,” said Motley.

While small business advocates were wringing their hands, advocates for the disabled heralded the bill as a major victory. “It’s the final touch on civil rights activism for the disabled,” said Frances Gracechild, executive director of Resources for Independent Living, a Sacramento organization that helps about 800 disabled clients a year prepare for jobs and living on their own.

Gracechild said many disabled people expect to be rejected when they apply for jobs.

“I say, ask for the job and make the employer say no to you,” she said. “I think this law will give disabled people the heart to go for it.”

Gracechild said she hopes disabled customer will approach business owners and ask for help in patronizing their businesses before going to court.

She said many corporations are anxious to reach disabled customers. Her organization is working with Hertz Corp. to set up a pilot program that will provide hand-controlled rental cars for disabled drivers in Sacramento.

A recent survey by the Job Accommodation Network, a Morgantown, W. Va., information clearinghouse for employers seeking help and equipment for handicapped workers, found that it doesn’t cost as much as business owners think to make their workplace accessible to the disabled.

Thirty-one percent of the respondents said the changes cost nothing, 19% said the changes cost less than $50 and 19% said they spent between $50 and $500. Although most business owners would support the concept of ending discrimination against the disabled, they are still concerned with the costs.

“I would think this would be a hardship for smaller companies who are struggling for survival now,” said Barry Baszile, owner of Baszile Metals Service in Los Angeles and co-chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce’s growing companies committee.

He said any modifications made to accommodate handicapped workers and customers will increase the cost of doing business.

Meanwhile, business owners seeking information on how to comply with the law can turn to various organizations for help.

“We are expecting a bombardment of calls,” said Tyler Thompson, who works for the Job Accommodation Network. JAN’s toll-free number (800-526-7234), already receives about 25 calls a day from employers seeking help. The service is available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., coast-to-coast.