Equal opportunity employment
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@solo said:
Another example, lets say I have a very small manufacturing business and I need unskilled workers to do a boring repetative job of labeling boxes. The job does not have any requirements that would exclude anyone, however a disabled person applys for the position and can do the job physically so I cannot discriminate on those grounds but I now have a problem as my facilities are not wheelchair friendly nor do I have an oversized toilet with the required setup for a person wheelchair bound. So I'm in a tough spot as I cannot reject this person as they are capable of doing job but in order to employ this person I need to widen all access doors, add ramps, allocate a disabled parking space and renovate the toilet facilities which will cost a fortune and being a very small business I cannot afford this, but if I reject the applicant I am faced with serious legal action.
What now?
I guess some governments have budget for those purposes. They will pay you necessary changes you need to do to employ disabled person ...
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@solo said:
Another example, lets say I have a very small manufacturing business and I need unskilled workers to do a boring repetative job of labeling boxes. The job does not have any requirements that would exclude anyone, however a disabled person applys for the position and can do the job physically so I cannot discriminate on those grounds but I now have a problem as my facilities are not wheelchair friendly nor do I have an oversized toilet with the required setup for a person wheelchair bound. So I'm in a tough spot as I cannot reject this person as they are capable of doing job but in order to employ this person I need to widen all access doors, add ramps, allocate a disabled parking space and renovate the toilet facilities which will cost a fortune and being a very small business I cannot afford this, but if I reject the applicant I am faced with serious legal action.
What now?
Well, in the UK NOT having those facilities would be illegal. DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) requirements. In my region, a bank has had to go to the lengths of installing a lift because they have just one disabled customer - he complained and took them to court over the issue, and won. The building happened to be old and traditional and built on a hill and he did not like the fact that staff had to come out to deal with him - he wanted to go to the counter like every other customer.
The same rules are being extended and it will soon be a legal requirement for housing to have level access to all facilities - in other words, every house will have to have a lounge, kitchen, toilet, bathroom, and bedroom on the ground floor. There will be no more town houses built (unless we install huge lifts to put the cars on the upper floor.)
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@unknownuser said:
I guess some governments have budget for those purposes. They will pay you necessary changes you need to do to employ disabled person ...
fair enough, If the government is willing to spend tax payers dollars in order to make my facilities handicap accessible then so be it, the $10 p/h person is hired and the taxpayers are happy...or are they?
I seriously doubt the government will spend money to correct the small business, they will rather force the owner into debt, even if it means he has to close shop and all employees lose their jobs. They cannot do anything else as if they agree not to employ the disabled guy they are then guilty of discrimination, and if they spend tax money to correct the facilities they then set a precedent that will bite them on the ass in the future.
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@solo said:
@unknownuser said:
I guess some governments have budget for those purposes. They will pay you necessary changes you need to do to employ disabled person ...
fair enough, If the government is willing to spend tax payers dollars in order to make my facilities handicap accessible then so be it, the $10 p/h person is hired and the taxpayers are happy...or are they?
I seriously doubt the government will spend money to correct the small business, they will rather force the owner into debt, even if it means he has to close shop and all employees lose their jobs. They cannot do anything else as if they agree not to employ the disabled guy they are then guilty of discrimination, and if they spend tax money to correct the facilities they then set a precedent that will bite them on the ass in the future.
Here is how it works in Czech Republic. You don't have to employ disabled person, but if you will make decision to do so, government will support you.
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@unknownuser said:
Here is how it works in Czech Republic. You don't have to employ disabled person, but if you will make decision to do so, government will support you.
we can learn from y'all.
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@solo said:
we can learn from y'all.
I am not quite sure, but we copied it from the Germans (probably)
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I understand that the legacy of Harriet Harman is that you will soon be able only to refuse to employ male blind bus drivers. Female blind bus drivers will have an automatic right to employment, because they are female.
@unknownuser said:
All persons are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
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I know of cases like the one John describes above, where a single Human Rights complaint caused an older arena to have to install a lift. This was in a small town, and the person who lodged the complaint was the only resident of the town with a disability. The commission ruled that he had the right to go wherever the public were allowed within the arena.
Generally here all new buildings have to comply with accessibility standards. Older buildings would have to come up to compliance if they were to take out a building permit. Houses have to have an entrance and a main floor bathroom with doors that are accessible, but that is all at the moment.
In listed historic buildings you would be permitted to, for example, have an area on the main floor that could be used by every office or business within the building to service people with disabilities if those businesses were not accessible. However one washroom would have to be modified for accessibility. -
My 53 year-old sister has been disabled since she was 16 when an uninsured drunk driver collided with the Austin Mini she was driving. She is extremely intelligent but has classified as unemployable due to her disabilities. She isn't in a wheelchair -- but has coordination issues (jerky movements) and some short-term memory issues). Over the years she has been involved in a few government sponsored "job-skill" type programs aimed at helping the chronically unemployed get meaningful work.
A few years back she got involved in a program where "students" were placed in a psychiatric institution with the idea they'd get skills that might lead to employment in the institution. There were several students and there was the potential of two or three permanent jobs at the end. The burned out staff in the institution thought the idea of the program was stupid were not helpful in the least. They paired the students up with the "worst" patients. I'm sure they thought it would be funny having the students deal with violent patients the staff considered lost causes. The Doctors who led the program tasked the students to be creative and try and figure out how to help the patients. My sister was paired with a teenage girl who was severely retarded and had lived her whole life in the institution. Her only communication was grunts, screams, hitting, biting and crying. She had been sexualized (raped) by other patients (and probably staff too) and was starting to behave like she was "in heat". She was a real handful for staff to manage and the nurses treated her as hopeless. Anyways, my sister quickly noticed that the only thing that held this girl's attention for more than a minute was cartoons. My sister ended up writing and illustrating a personalized comic book to try and communicate ideas that she was becoming a woman now and how to behave. It worked in opening up a way to communicate with the girl. My sister went on to work with another patient and had a breakthrough with him too (She figured out he was deaf but nobody knew. They thought he was severely retarded - turned out he wasn't!). My sister received top marks in the program.
When it came time to fill the jobs they had available my sister was told they couldn't give it to her because she was herself disabled and people caring for the patients needed to be able-bodied. Talk about discrimination!
Sorry for the long story but I thought some might find it interesting.
Regards, Ross
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Thanks, Ross, for the fresh air...
Anssi
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In the U.S., since 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act has been federal law, and it states all new construction, and renovations to existing buildings, since it was enacted musty be accessible. Therefore, Solo, if your facility was constructed or renovated after 1990, it should already be accessible and you canot descriminate. If it was constructed prior to 1990, the litmus test is if accessibility can be readibly achieved - easily accomplished without too much difficulty or expense.
Having lived in south Mississippi and witnessed descrimination based on both ethnicity and gender, I believe equal opportunity employment requirements are necessary. People should be evaluated on their ability to do the job, not some arbitrary, inconsequential factor such as race, gender, religion, etc.
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Ross, sorry to read about your sister's bad experience with that staff. Ultimately it was their, and their patient's, loss as it sounds like she'd make an excellent therapist.
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We have a situation here in Northern Ireland where there was quite a bit of religious discrimination in the past - advertisements read "Catholics neeed not apply" very similar to the racial discrimination in the states in the 50's & 60's. Now the make up of a workplace must be similar to the local community ( 55% / 45% - Protestant / Catholic). Even the police force has had positive discrimination to bring up the number of catholics (during the troubles very few catholics joined the police force as they would have been targetted by the paramilitaries). Again - ability is being sidelined for minority promotion - I believe people should be employed on merit - not their ethnicity or religion. Northern Ireland is a superb place to live but the sectarianism is still pretty bad and these Equal Opportunity Laws provide some protection to the individual but common sense seems to have been left out of it.
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