[Nfb-or] Fw: [nfb-talk] Fw: When It Comes to Hiring, Blind Workers Face Bias

Tue Mar 19 21:17:34 UTC 2013

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Meskys" <edmeskys at roadrunner.com>
To: "nfb-talk" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 9:46 AM
Subject: [nfb-talk] Fw: When It Comes to Hiring, Blind Workers Face Bias

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Finn, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:52 AM
Subject: When It Comes to Hiring, Blind Workers Face Bias

Good morning,

Passing this along for your information and further distribution as you 
consider appropriate. I hope you are all safe and warm in this "snow event".

Bill

William A. Finn, Administrator

Office of Services for Blind and Visually Impaired

NH Department of Education

21 So. Fruit St.

Concord, NH 03301

Tel: 603-271-3537

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 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 lost a 
suit 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. 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 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 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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