Labor Department employees told Government Executive that the department is facing a backlog of hundreds of reasonable accommodation requests.
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Faced with a backlog of accommodation requests from employees with disabilities and medical conditions, the Labor Department plans to use artificial intelligence to triage the workload. An internal email obtained by Government Executive states that staff at the Civil Rights Center, which processes reasonable accommodation requests, currently must “engage substantively with every request regardless of completeness or likely outcome, limiting capacity and delaying determinations.” “The process requires case-by-case judgment, but cases vary significantly in complexity and documentation quality: some are well-supported and straightforward, some require additional documentation, and some are not well-supported by the documentation provided,” the email states. Labor Department employees told Government Executive that the department is facing a backlog of hundreds of RA requests. Several reported waiting months or, in some cases, a year or longer for for reviews, delays they say have hampered productivity at a department charged with protecting the workplace rights of workers with disabilities. One DOL employee told Government Executive that he submitted a reasonable accommodation request in March 2025, supported by documentation from his primary care and a mental health providers, yet his case remains pending.“It’s just kind of ironic to me that the Labor Department is violating policies that they set,” he said. “That’s the most frustrating part, to be honest, is that they can’t even abide by their own rules.” Labor officials wrote in the internal memo that AI will “streamline” this work, citing four AI applications under review “to improve this process.” The memo stresses these AI tools will play a supporting role in processing reasonable accommodations, and that Civil Rights Center employees “will contin
Government Executive · 4 days ago
