[nabs-l] Thoughts on the United lawsuit

Thu Nov 4 02:32:07 UTC 2010

Heather,

Thanks.  I appreciate your taking a moment to explain things.  I don't know
that I totally agree with all of it, but your explanation helps put things
into perspective.

Marc,

I don't know the exact statistics for the unemployment rate.  I don't know
that the 75% is accurate either, but I think we can agree that the rate is
higher than average.  That being the case, I don't know that we can draw
links to the number of successful training graduates who find employment
without data to back up that hypothesis and would be equally interested in
figures to help us better understand the factors contributing to the
dilemma.

In terms of employment strategies, I've outlined a few in previous posts, so
forgive any repetition, but a few would include:

1. Seek government grant funding to reinstall Jobline.  It was a good
service for people who've yet to conquer the Internet.

2. Host a career fair during or around Washington Seminar.

3. Conduct in-service type seminars at corporations to enlighten human
resource departments on accommodations, etc.

4. Partner up with companies to host fellowships and internships.

The point is to highlight employment head-on.  If I had more time I would
flush these thoughts out a little.  I've thought about beginning a mentoring
network among fellow blind professionals so that we can create an open
channel into the places we work, a kind of guild though this may prove
difficult since such structures are arranged around specialties.  I'd just
like to see a more open dialogue with the various industries.  I suppose
there are special divisions for this purpose, but I've yet to see a division
outside of the rehab folks and maybe education where there is an active
network of people helping each other out.  If I'm wrong, I wish people would
be more public about it in our major publications like the Monitor.

Just a few thoughts while traveling, not using United. LOL

Joe

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing 

-----Original Message-----
From: H. Field [mailto:missheather at comcast.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 6:45 PM
To: jsorozco at gmail.com; National Association of Blind Students 
mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Thoughts on the United lawsuit

Hi Joe,
I wanted to put a few things up for consideration. Here's my thoughts 
on the matter.

Firstly, as with all social issues, this matter is not as simple as it 
seems on the surface. Let me demonstrate. We know that a large factor 
in the unemployment and under employment of the blind is the belief, 
on the part of employers, that blind people are incompetent. Yes, 
there are other factors but this one is probably the biggest.

As with all attempts to change attitudes and beliefs in society a 
multi-faceted approach will be most successful. One very important 
facet of this approach is to ensure that blind people are not, 
needlessly, forced to appear less competent in public. When business 
people are meeting independent, blind travellers in  airports, we want 
them to be meeting blind people who are ijust like them; competent 
people doing what one has to do to travel by plane. As we all know, 
just one encounter with a blind person can seriously influence the 
views of the sighted. So, to ensure accessibility for blind travellers 
is not only helping the minority of blind people who independently 
travel by air, it is helping all blind people through the public 
education of would-be employers and co-workers as the sighted observe 
the blind travellers taking care of themselves at airports. I believe 
this is more effective than many may realize.

As for targeting manufacturers, we have a lot less leverage with them, 
in that they have no need to change if airlines are quite happy with 
the product they're already getting. Furthermore, most manufacturers 
of electronic kiosks don't have much of a public image which can be 
threatened by publicly revealing that they discriminate against the 
blind with their product. I don't know the names of any myself. 
However, an airline has a great deal to lose if the public are made 
aware that they are discriminating against the blind. I'm sure you 
would agree that we should use our limited resources to get the 
biggest bang for our buck which undoubtedly comes from confronting the 
airlines and putting their discrimination fairly in the centre of the 
public square where customers can react with their dollars.

Regarding using the courts to the exclusion of other avenues of social 
change, this is not really an argument based on an overview of the 
NFB's activity over the years. We have just been involved in getting 
the Technology act past (sorry, not sure of name) and we continue to 
work on issues such as the earnings limit with social security. We 
have just announced the wonderful partnership with Ebay and continue 
to encourage accessibility online with the website certification 
programme. The Louis Braille coin campaign was aimed at changing 
employment rates, albeit it in the future, by raising braille literacy 
levels among blind students, as does the Braille Readers Are Leaders 
competition. A new initiative is to expand this competition to adults, 
thus challenging blind adults to improve their braille skills which, 
we know, makes them more employable. Though many blind people are 
doubtful of the value of the NFB's part in developing a driverless car 
for the blind, it is absolutely unarguable that lack of transportation 
to and from the workplace is among the top three reasons that blind 
people don't have jobs. We have to address this issue somehow, how 
should it be done? This technology seems to be the most promising yet. 
We may not have cars for the blind in my time but I know how much of a 
difference this will make for the blind adults of tomorrow in terms of 
choice of jobs.

There is no one, big fix, one giant, focused initiative that will 
change the employment situation. Social factors change and so does the 
challenge of employment for the blind. For example, many blind 
professionals lost jobs in the change over from dos-based to 
windows-based computers. It has taken years for us to catch up in the 
technology arena. Similarly, many switch-board operators lost jobs 
when computerised switch-boards were installed, and the same story is 
told of job losses as factories became more computerised/mechanised. 
It is certainly the case that huge numbers of manufacturing jobs have 
been taken off-shore to other countries and are no longer available to 
americans in general and blind americans in particular. Indeed, I have 
heard it argued that there were more jobs for blind people before the 
technology surge of the 1980s. Whether this is the case or not, there 
simply is no justification for saying that the NFB isn't working to 
raise employment among the blind. Look at the employment rates of NFB 
training Center graduates. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer, 
no one answer, no one approach, no one area of focus. Like the parable 
of the man eating an elephant, one bite at a time, so the NFB can only 
take on such a massive social issue in small areas of opposition. And, 
we are making a difference, we are truly making headway, if slowly, if 
in small steps, we are still moving forward. Granted, it may not be as 
fast or as far as you would like but, sadly, this is the nature of 
social change.

Regards,

Heather

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com>
To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 3:54 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Thoughts on the United lawsuit

Hi Jorge,

I agree with you.  Let's hope a new initiative will come down soon 
from the
NFB to address the issue of unemployment.  I could be wrong, but the 
only
real step toward targeting the issue this past summer dealt with the
Randolph Sheppard Act, certainly a great program but not one into 
which a
lot of people should feel compelled to enter for the sake of being 
employed.
Filing complaints and taking up lawsuits on issues of inaccessible
technology is a roundabout way of making workplaces more accessible
(traveling more feasible?), but does little to change attitudes about 
not
discriminating against blind people in the first place.

Best,

Joe

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their 
sleeves,
some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."--Sam Ewing

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