Patricia Shiu, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, says time is right to strengthen rules that encourage hiring people with disabilities.
The U.S. Department of Labor closed the comment period on its proposed new rule to spur the hiring people with disabilities on February 21. Officials apparently have plenty of feedback to sift through as they mull over their final decision, and not much of it is positive.
According to an article by Melanie Trottman in last week’s Wall Street Journal, “companies have flooded the department with complaints” over concept of having to have people with disabilities comprise 7% of the workforce in order to receive a federal contract.
Trottman’s article says the rule change would have a wide-ranging impact, affecting some 200,000 companies that either receive federal contracts or are subcontracted for work that adds up to approximately $700 billion annually. Concerns include violating employee privacy laws, finding an adequate number of qualified employees with disabilities, and having to let go of current employees to fulfill the quota.
Thus far, government officials have been resolute in answering the complaints. At the time of the rule’s introduction in December, Director of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Patricia Shiu, called the proposed rule the “greatest proposal for real substantive change” since the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. In Trottman’s article, Shiu’s response to the feedback from the business sector was blunt:
Current law encourages federal contractors to maintain a diverse work force but sets no parameters on how many jobs must go to disabled Americans.’What gets measured gets done,’ said [Shiu]. ‘And we’re in the business of getting things done.’
On the subject of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act provision that prevents companies from asking disability-related questions to prospective employees, Shiu said companies would remain in compliance by inviting candidates to self-identify as a person with a disability in an effort to improve data collection. Companies would also anonymously survey current employees to achieve the same.
Shiu added that the government would not be acting in a punitive manner toward companies that had trouble reaching the 7% goal, giving them every chance to achieve the goal and canceling contracts in only “the most egregious cases.”
Advocates for people with disabilities are obviously in favor of the new rule. The ones that Trottman speaks with are using the occasion of public discourse to raise awareness about the value these people bring to the labor force. Workplace modifications aren’t as cost-prohibitive as many business believe and almost any job can be filled by a person with a disability, if given the right career training. Kevan Johnson, an employment consultant for people with disabilities, tells Trottman:
… [S]tronger regulations are needed because severely disabled workers are being overlooked by contractors ‘who think they can’t do the job.’ Mr. Johnson said employers might not be aware of workplace accommodations they could make to enable a disabled person to do their job. ‘There’s an education process,’ he said.
What would you tell an employer who thought a person with a disability couldn’t do a particular job? Share in the comments section.
Image by US Department of Labor, used under its Creative Commons license.
In a good economy with a robust job force, this would be a great idea. But in a weakened economy, with the ACTUAL unemployment rate hovering around 14%, companies are more apt to get to the 7% threshold by releasing their current employees to meet the number, than to hire and train hundreds of disabled workers, even if they could find enough of them qualified to do the job.
Thanks for your comment, Buddy. As we noted in a post the following day, ODEP director Kathleen Martinez has stated the goal of the new rule is to improve data collection on an employer’s efforts to recruit people with disabilities in much the same way they are required to track recruitment of women or members of ethnic groups in the spirit of creating a workforce that is representative of the U.S. population; it is not a quota that would set-up a system of punitive punishment for companies not in compliance. As to your comment about people with disabilities being unqualified, I think you’d be surprised at what the 54 million Americans with disabilities are capable of contributing in the workplace. Let’s give them that opportunity!