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Subject: Uncovering a Huge, Hidden Community; Disabilities Act Reveals More Impaired
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 09:18:27 EST
Message-ID: <2.1992Nov22.091827@AmeriCast.com>

Uncovering a Huge, Hidden Community; Disabilities Act Reveals
More Impaired Workers - and Worry Among Employers<By Jay
Mathews=Washington Post Staff Writer=

For years, Ross Kirby, a computer specialist in San Francisco,
knew he had some hearing loss but did not tell his bosses at Pa-
cific Bell Co. They seemed to be thoughtful and understanding
people, but why take the risk of being labeled a problem?

 He continued to get by, asking people on the telephone to speak
up and avoiding large, confusing social gatherings - until this
year, when the new federal disability law coaxed him into the
open. "It didn't make sense for me not to come out," he said.
"And now I'm scheduled for a full-range hearing test."

 The advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an at-
tempt to extend new rights and opportunities to millions of peo-
ple, has begun to expose the depths of the problem of hidden
disabilities in the workplace, personnel officers and disability
rights experts say. Since the act's employment provisions took
effect in July, thousands of people have been revealing their
disabilities and testing the act's ability to deal with dizzying
complexities.

 An assembly line worker recovering from an injury in Calumet
City, Ill., was told by his union when he asked for a specialized
chair that everyone in the factory would have to get one if he
did. Disability rights experts had to explain the law to both the
union and worried managers before the worker got what he needed.

 A teacher in Michigan was threatened with dismissal when she re-
vealed to her principal that she had hearing loss.  After she
talked to the Great Lakes Disability and Business Technical As-
sistance Center (DBTAC) in Chicago, one of 10 regional centers
established to explain the ADA, she warned the principal he would
violate the law if he fired her. All she needed, she said, was
some help following conversation at teachers' meetings, which he
accepted.

 At the regional assistance centers, which are funded by $6.5
million from the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation
and Research, hundreds of telephone calls pour in daily from em-
ployees, employers, contractors and government officials seeking
explanations of the ADA.

 Disability rights experts say the bias against the disabled, the
assumption that any physical impairment disqualifies a person for
work, lives on, and feeds a fear among employees with hidden
disabilities that even availing themselves of the ADA's provi-
sions will cost them their jobs, or at least reduce their profes-
sional standing.

 "There are many people there who are still not reporting them-
selves," said Deborah Kaplan, director of the division on tech-
nology policy for the World Institute on Disability in Oakland.
"But, for the first time, there is an advantage to coming out
that outweighs the risks."

 Some experts estimate the number of workers disguising a disa-
bility may be in the hundreds of thousands, but no one knows for
sure.

 Ellen Daly, legislative analyst for the President's Committee on
Employment of People with Disabilities, said the 1990 census re-
ported 4,250,484 disabled Americans aged 16 to 64 in some kind of
full- or part-time job. Most estimates put the total number of
Americans with disabilities at 43 million, larger than any other
disadvantaged minority.  By 1994, the ADA will require all
businesses with 15 or more employees to provide "reasonable ac-
commodations" for disabled workers. Its provisions remain widely
misunderstood and misinterpreted, forcing businesses to scramble
for information that will allow them to comply and escape the
many lawsuits the act is expected to generate.

 At the Great Lakes DBTAC, project coordinator Robin Jones and
her staff of three have logged 15,000 calls in their first year.
Many calls are from personnel directors trying to rewrite job
descriptions. "A receptionist might be told that one of her du-
ties is to keep the front desk clean, but that would not be an
essential job function and thus not be allowed as an excuse not
to hire a disabled person," Jones said.  At the Southwest DBTAC
in Houston, a mid-sized company called to check a complaint from
an employee about a question on its standard employment applica-
tion. "The form asked right up front, 'Do you have a physical di-
sability,' " the sort of question outlawed by the ADA, said
center director Lex Frieden. "That's maybe an extreme example,
but a lot of companies need to review their application forms."



"There needs to be more information about the ADA," said Paul G.
Hearne, president of the Washington-based Dole Foundation on Em-
ployment of People with Disabilities. "There needs to be more
understanding about the mythology, that the act doesn't mean you
have to rebuild your building tomorrow, or that your insurance
costs will skyrocket, or that your employees with disabilities
will be absent 30 percent of the time."

 He said he expects many disabled people to remain under cover,
as many did when federal law in 1973 extended some protections to
employees of companies with federal contracts. But eventually, he
said, he expects the ADA to change the prevailing view of such
laws as "an act of public welfare" and let employers see that
"these are people who have talent and can be even more productive
with some assistance."

 At Pacific Bell in San Francisco, both employees and customers
with disabilities have been brought in for discussions of how the
company might make their work more efficient. Susan Walters,
manager of strategic issues, said one of their ideas is a
"designer dial tone" that would offer the time, medication rem-
inders or other useful information whenever an employee or custo-
mer picked up the phone.

 Walters said employers have discovered that innovations that
help people with disabilities also may appeal to those without
disabilities. "We're looking for some kind of electronic curb
cuts," she said, referring to the sloping curbs ordered in many
cities to help wheelchair users, but also applauded by delivery
crews, mothers with strollers and skateboard enthusiasts.

 Bell Employees for Adaptability (BEA), organized as the ADA went
into effect, also has helped staff members who kept their disa-
bilities hidden. Kirby, who now works for an in-house company
publication, was inspired by a conversation with BEA activist
Carol Chavez, who asked if he'd like to join.

 "I don't really consider myself to have a disability," he said.

 "You're hedging," she said. "Why?" So he told her what was
wrong, and she convinced him that, in the ADA era, it was silly
to keep his hearing loss a secret.

 "I'm certain there are a lot more people out there like me," he
said. "And a lot of people who have a disability who are denying
even to themselves that they have one."<02:02 11-22C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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