[nfb-talk] Blind

Tue Nov 5 20:22:25 UTC 2013

jobseekers still face many obstacles in pursuit of work By DAVID CRARY, 
Associated Press CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Back in the late 1980s, when Maura 
Mazzocca was a human resources administrator with a Boston-area firm, a 
blind man showed up to apply for a job. Today, she remembers the 
encounter ruefully. "What I kept thinking about was, 'How can this man 
work in a manufacturing company"' Mazzocca recalled, saying she looked 
past his abilities and saw only his disability. "I wish now I'd given 
him a chance. That reflectiveness is heartfelt. Mazzocca lost her own 
eyesight in 1994 through complications related to diabetes. Now as a 
jobseeker herself, she knows firsthand the many hurdles the blind must 
overcome in pursuit of full-time work. At a job fair last month for 
blind and low-vision people, there she was going table to table, with a 
sighted volunteer by her side. Some of the other 80 jobseekers carried 
white canes, a few had guide dogs. Like the rest, Mazzocca was greeted 
with firm handshakes and encouraging words - but none of the employers 
she spoke with had job openings matching her interests and 
qualifications. The venue was the former Radcliffe College gymnasium 
where Helen Keller exercised en route to becoming the first deaf/blind 
person to earn a bachelor of arts degree in 1904. Over the ensuing 
decades, Keller helped increase public awareness of blindness and 
empathy for those affected by it. Yet blind people remain largely 
unwanted in the U.S. workplace, despite technological advances that 
dramatically boost their capabilities. Only about 24 percent of 
working-age Americans with visual disabilities had full-time jobs as of 
2011, according to Cornell University's Employment and Disability 
Institute. "There's a lot of stigma, a lot of obstacles," said Mazzocca, 
51. "It comes down to educating employers... It's going to take a really 
long time, if ever, for them to see us for who we are and what we bring 
to the table. What they bring, according to national advocates for the 
blind, is a strong work ethic, plus deeper-than-average loyalty to their 
employers. That's in addition to whatever talents and training they 
bring, just like any other applicant. In the current economy, good jobs 
are hard to come by for anyone, even the sighted. But the blind face 
added challenges. Even employers professing interest in hiring blind 
people often don't follow through out of concern that they might be a 
bit slower with key tasks or require assistance that could be 
burdensome. In some cases, said Mazzocca, who has held professional jobs 
since she lost her sight, "They're thinking, 'What if I have to fire 
them? Will they sue me"' Many national and local organizations are 
working hard to change the equation, through a mix of outreach to 
employers, training and counseling for jobseekers, and support for 
technological development. Though sometimes costly, there are now myriad 
devices and technologies that can convert computer text or printed pages 
into Braille or spoken words. Still, the steadiest sources of jobs for 
many blind people are nonprofit organizations with missions related to 
blindness and other disabilities. Among them is National Industries for 
the Blind, a network of 91 nonprofit agencies which collectively employ 
about 6,000 blind people. It recently conducted a survey of 400 hiring 
managers and human resource executives across the U.S. The survey found 
54 percent of hiring managers said there were few jobs at their company 
that blind employees could perform, 45 percent said accommodating such 
workers would require "considerable expense," 42 percent said blind 
employees would need someone to help them on the job, and 34 percent 
said they were more likely to have work-related accidents than sighted 
employees. "We're having to deal with lots of misconceptions and myths," 
said Kevin Lynch, CEO of National Industries for the Blind. "From that 
standpoint, the study was clearly disappointing, but it gives us the 
opportunity to find a way forward. Lynch and his colleagues take heart 
from federal initiatives that have expanded hiring of blind people by 
government agencies and federal contractors. They also are encouraged by 
efforts of the U.S. Business Leadership Network, a coalition led by 
several dozen major corporations seeking to boost employment of people 
with disabilities, including blindness. Another initiative called 
CareerConnect, launched by the American Foundation for the Blind, offers 
an array of resources and advice for blind jobseekers, including a 
mentorship program to connect them with blind people working in the 
professions they aspire to. Joe Strechay, program manager for 
CareerConnect, said visually impaired people tend to be dedicated 
workers - less likely than others to miss a shift or quit the job, and 
no more likely than others to sue in the event of dismissal. Among those 
featured on CareerConnect's website is Jay Blake, a race car mechanic 
and pit crew chief. Other role models include Erik Weihenmayer, the 
first blind person to climb Mount Everest, and the late Richard Casey, 
the first blind federal trial judge. Yet a glance through listings of 
prominent blind people conveys some of the challenges faced by 
jobseekers. There are many famous blind musicians, such as Ray Charles 
and Stevie Wonder, but a dearth of notables in many other fields. In the 
U.S. Congress, for example, there have been several blind members - but 
none since 1941. Numerous blind Americans have built successful careers 
as advocates of the visually impaired, but the pathway often is 
difficult. Frederic Schroeder, who served as commissioner of the 
Rehabilitation Services Administration under President Bill Clinton, 
recalls sending out 35 job applications after earning his master's 
degree in special education - and getting not a single offer in reply. 
Such rejection can be demoralizing, says Schroeder, now a professor of 
vocational rehabilitation with San Diego State University and a vice 
president of the National Federation of the Blind. "We need to make sure 
blind people don't think, 'Society doesn't want me1' and stop trying," 
he said. "If a person gives up hope of finding a suitable job, it's a 
terrible waste of human resources. It's terrible for people to live in 
poverty simply because of public misunderstanding. About 31 percent of 
working-age people with visual impairments live below the poverty line, 
roughly double the overall national rate, according to Cornell's 
Employment and Disability Institute. At the recent job fair, freelance 
writer John Christie, 57, said he sometimes struggles to keep up his 
spirits while pursuing a full-time job. "When I apply for something, I 
never hear back," he said, suggesting that he was disadvantaged by a 
resume listing numerous articles related to blindness. "Sometimes I'm 
optimistic, sometimes I'm frustrated," he said. "It depends on the day. 
Sometimes you get burned out. Another jobseeker, 32-year-old Jeff 
Paquette, graduated in 2011 from Johnson & Wales University in 
Providence, R.I., and is seeking work in the tourism/hospitality 
industry. Declared legally blind in 2006, he has limited vision that 
prevents him from driving but enables him to use public transportation 
on his own and to read, sometimes with the help of a magnification 
option on his computer. "I honestly don't know from employer to employer 
what their perceptions of someone like me will be," said Paquette, who 
carries a white cane when he's out and about. "I have to be honest with 
them. I will need some accommodation - but I'm fully capable. At the job 
fair, the only employer from the hospitality sector was Hyatt Hotels. 
Their representative told Paquette to keep checking on the company's 
jobs website. This was the third year for the event. Marianne Gilmore of 
the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Mass., one of the sponsors, 
said about 190 jobseekers attended during the first two years, 
collectively garnering two internships and perhaps a half-dozen 
full-time jobs. "It has to be the right match," Gilmore said. Even with 
no job offers, Maura Mazzocca was glad she attended - saying the 
face-to-face encounters and conversations about job hunting were useful. 
"People are not coming here expecting to get a job," she said. "If they 
did, they'd be disappointed. Mazzocca grew up in Burlington, Mass., 
about 15 miles from Boston, and graduated from Westfield State College 
in 1984. A series of jobs followed, including a stint as human resources 
administrator with EG&G Torque Systems in Watertown, Mass., where she 
encountered the blind jobseeker. She began experiencing vision problems 
in 1990 and underwent several operations before losing her sight in 
1994. A few years of uncertainty followed, before she learned how to 
read Braille and developed other skills through the Carroll Center. In 
1999, she landed a job with Fidelity Investments, but gave that up in 
2001 after she and her husband decided to adopt a 10-year-old boy. She 
returned to the workplace in 2010, getting hired as diversity manager at 
Hanscomb Air Force Base, a few miles from Burlington. After 16 months, 
however, she lost the job - her superiors told her she "wasn't a good 
fit" and lacked sufficient managerial experience. "I did have room for 
improvement - I don't think fact that I was blind had anything to do 
with it," Mazzocca said. And yet she second-guessed her approach to the 
job. "I had a lot to learn - but I didn't like to ask for help," she 
said. "Going forward, in my next position, I won't be afraid to ask for 
help sooner. She hopes to find work as a diversity coordinator, either 
for a municipality or a business. Among the 29 employers at the job fair 
were TD Bank, retailer T.J. Maxx, and several branches of Harvard 
University, including the job fair's host - the Radcliffe Institute for 
Advanced Study. Its human resources director, Charles Curti, said the 
institute has no full-time blind employees at present but was pleased by 
the outcome of two recent summer internships for students from the 
Perkins School for the Blind. In the course of his work, Curti has 
learned about evolving technologies now available to boost blind 
workers' capabilities. "It's an awakening experience," he said, a reason 
for optimism that the bias faced by blind jobseekers will gradually 
fade. "Fifteen years ago, when I'd talk about hiring blind people, I was 
stonewalled by human-resource colleagues," he said. "Now it's a 
completely different conversation. They're sold on the idea - they just 
need to know how to make it work. Behind another table was Richard 
Curtis, a vice president of State Street Corp., a Boston-based financial 
services company. He said State Street, with a global workforce of many 
thousands, believes that openness toward hiring people with disabilities 
will help it stay ahead of the competition. Last summer, Curtis arranged 
internships for two visually impaired young men - part of an effort to 
learn what accommodations would be needed and what challenges might 
arise for any blind employees hired in the future. Using Excel 
spreadsheets and other data-retrieval systems, the interns did research 
and helped provide information for company reports. "We tried to push 
them and they loved t... They don't want to be coddled," Curtis said. 
"Once they're trained, for the roles we had them do, they'd be equal in 
speed or accuracy to any other employee." 
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