[Ct-nfb] Wall Street Journal Article

Wed Apr 3 14:01:15 UTC 2013

I believe the wording" disability workers are an inconvient{ sorry about the
spelling} is the top reason why they do not hire blind workers.this is
important to understanding and work on the business to get rid of this idea.

Eileen torow 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ct-nfb [mailto:ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Justin
Salisbury
Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 8:32 PM
To: ct-nfb at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Ct-nfb] Wall Street Journal Article

Fellow Federationists,

Have you seen this article?  It is pretty profound, and I really think we
ought to see if other newspapers want to re-post it.  It would be a great
subject for editorials.

When a big paper like the Wall Street Journal publishes an article like this
one, we need to take advantage of the opportunities it presents.

We read and discussed this article at the Louisiana Center for the Blind.  I
encourage everyone to distribute this article to your local papers and also
add your comments with a positive philosophy about blindness.

Yours,

Justin Salisbury 

Justin M. Salisbury
B.A. in Mathematics
Class of 2012
East Carolina University
president at alumni.ecu.edu

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."    -MARGARET MEAD

________________________________________

When It Comes to Hiring, Blind Workers Face Bias The Wall Street Journal
.         March 18, 2013, 10:27 AM

By Leslie Kwoh

When it comes to hiring blind employees, many employers remain skeptical.

Bosses often assume blind workers cost more and produce less, according to a
new study. They also believe blind workers are more prone to workplace
accidents and less reliable than other workers.
The study, scheduled to be released this week by the nonprofit National
Industries for the Blind, polled 400 human-resources and hiring managers at
a mix of large and small U.S.-based companies. The group commissioned the
survey, in part, to shed light on why roughly 70% of the 3.5 million people
working-age Americans are not employed. (Legally blind Americans are
eligible for Social Security disability, according to NIB.)

NIB president and chief executive Kevin Lynch described the survey results
as a "terrible surprise." With the exception of certain jobs that require
driving or steering, "there are very few jobs that a person who's blind is
not capable of doing," he says.

The findings reveal a disconnect between what employers say and what they
do. While the majority of executives claim they want to hire and train
disabled workers, many view blind workers as an inconvenience.

Hiring managers tended to be slightly more negative than human-resources
managers, but overall results were similar.
.         Among hiring managers, most respondents (54%) felt there were few
jobs at their company that blind employees could perform, and 45% said
accommodating such workers would require "considerable expense."
.         Forty-two percent of hiring managers believe blind employees need
someone to assist them on the job; 34% said blind workers are more likely to
have work-related accidents.
.         One-quarter of respondents said blind employees are "more
sensitive" than other employees; the same percentage said they were "more
difficult to supervise."
.         Twenty-three percent of hiring managers said blind employees are
not as productive as their colleagues, and 19% believe these employees have
a higher absentee rate.

Blindness is largely absent from corporate conversation about employees with
disabilities with the exception of sporadic lawsuits: Last August, Hawaiian
Electric Co.
agreed<http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hawaiian-electric-settle-discrimination
-lawsuit-140923965.html> to pay $50,000 to settle a discrimination suit by a
partially blind employee, the AP reported. And in December, Bloomberg
reported that a blind ex-banker at the Royal Bank of Scotland
Group<http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=RBS.LN>
lost a
suit<http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-11/blind-banker-loses-rbs-disc
rimination-lawsuit-at-u-dot-k-dot-tribunal> seeking disability benefits.

Rarer still is news about companies like apparel business SustainU, based in
West Virginia, which hires blind and visually impaired employees to man its
factory, according to the New York
Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/business/sustainu-an-apparel-maker-t
urns-to-blind-workers.html?_r=0>. The company said there was no difference
in the cost and quality of its goods when compared to that of other U.S.
manufacturers.

Companies may have to invest some money to provide "reasonable
accommodations" for a blind employee, as required by the Americans with
Disabilities Act. However,  says NIB's Lynch, many computers and smartphones
already have built-in features that enable users to change font size and
light intensity. Installing voice technology that allows computers to "read"
text to a blind employee costs just $1,500 to $2,000, he says. The American
Foundation for the Blind has
estimated<http://www.afb.org/section.aspx?FolderID=2&SectionID=7&TopicID=116
&SubTopicID=70&DocumentID=2887> that 88% of employee accommodations cost
less than $1,000.

As for health insurance, company rates are determined by the number of
incidents among the entire group - not individual employees - no evidence
suggests that blind employees incur more costs than other workers, Mr. Lynch
says.

Blind employees may also be more loyal than most, he adds. A DePaul
University
study<http://www.disabilityworks.org/downloads/disabilityworksDePaulStudyCom
prehensiveResults.pdf> from 2007 found that employees with disabilities were
likely to stay on the job four months longer, on average, than employees
without disabilities.
The study also found that workers with disabilities took 1.24 fewer
scheduled absences than non-disabled workers during a six-month period. But
they took, on average, 1.13 more days of unscheduled absences

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