The new strategic plan provides a more comprehensive and structured approach to further improve federal agencies' management of the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This approach includes actions agencies need to take to increase transparency, strengthen accountability, and improve collaboration regarding accessible electronic and information technology (EIT). Author: Shawn Kellmer The Highlander • Enterprise Design by School Newspapers Online • Log in Vote Trailer from Communications @ MU on Vimeo. The Misericordia community is invited to a screening of a new documentary that reveals barriers to voting for people with disabilities. The 20-minute documentary titled “VOTE” showcases the trials that faced people with disabilities as they attempted to vote in the November election. The heart of the film centers around the barriers to polling place access that the documentary makers, Dr. Melissa Sgroi and professor Dan Kimbrough, both of the communications department, revealed. Sgroi and Kimbrough decided to make the film because they saw a need to bring voting accessibility issues to the attention of the media and the community. “I know that many barriers, physical and social, exist for people with disabilities. They are very well hidden from most of us by the standard, accepted, able-normative culture in which we live,” said Sgroi. Sgroi is well aware of these problems. She has recently earned her doctorate researching disability and media education. As Sgroi and Kimbrough visited polling places in Lackawanna and Luzerne County, they discovered many inaccessible polling places, something that the professors did not expect. They had originally intended to follow a Marywood University student with a disability as he went to vote. The documentary’s direction changed after they noticed the polling place had no [accessible] parking. “We thought, ‘Well, if this place is not very accessible to people with disabilities, what might others be like?’” said Sgroi. This question prompted the filmmakers the change direction and go to four more polling places to see if the situation was different. They found that all of the buildings they visited were not accessible.
The movie also highlights small things that non-disabled people may take for granted. “All barriers can stop someone with a disability from voting depending upon the nature of their disability and their mobility,” said Sgroi. “At one polling place, the threshold to the building was a little more or a little bit less, somewhere around two inches tall, and it was made of concrete. So if you’re in a wheelchair, you can’t really get over a two inch tall threshold to get in if you’re alone, which we have to assume they could be.” This was just one of the many barriers covered in the documentary, but they are just a small piece of the bigger picture. “There are many different kinds of problems depending upon the disability and the level of mobility,” said Sgroi. Sgroi and Kimbrough also discovered that the barriers faced by people with disabilities are not necessarily anyone’s intention. “Most of these voting places, if not the majority of them, are in inaccessible places simply because of the age of the buildings. There isn’t a lot you can do when we have to use a very old structure,” said Sgroi. But through her research, Sgroi discovered that many accessibility issues can be easily, and inexpensively, fixed if people are simply aware of them. “It comes down to education. Do we just provide a helper outside, for instance? Do we put a piece of plywood down, for instance?” said Sgroi. “It doesn’t have to be major construction to solve these problems.” Sgroi and Kimbrough are co-producers of the documentary. Sgroi takes credit for the concept, the writing, and the reporting, but there would have been no film without Kimbrough. “There wouldn’t be a documentary if it weren’t for Dan. He did all of the shooting and editing. So, I would have had to have written about it and not shoot it as a documentary,” said Sgroi. “My plan was originally to write about it, but when I realized it was a story best told visually, I realized this would make a much better documentary than a print story.” Kimbrough became a part of the project due to his interest in multicultural issues, according to Sgroi. “People with disabilities are, according to the recent scholarship, considered a minority group,” said Sgroi. Communications department media manager Dave Thackara served as audio engineer. He recorded Sgroi’s narration and handled all of the music for the film. “I think Melissa has a passion for trying to bring to light some of the issues for the handicapped that may get swept under the rug, ignored, or just for some reason, not brought to light,” said Thackara. “I think that she’s got a passion for making sure that those stories get told, that those problems get fixed.”The documentary work will not end here. Sgroi and Kimbrough will return to the polling places in May to see if changes were made. “We’re going to grow it [the documentary]. We’ll probably take the first part and have to re-edit it into a much broader story about here’s what was uncovered and here’s what’s happening now,” said Sgroi. “I don’t know what will be happening at that time.” [email protected] Author: Jennifer LipfordContact: 312-744-5365 The taxi industry funded Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund will receive a $1.7 million dollar grant for the purchase or conversion of wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs) for the taxicab industry Today, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) announced the latest step in Mayor Emanuel’s efforts to increase accessibility in Chicago’s taxicab industry. The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has awarded funds from the New Freedom program to the City of Chicago’s Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Fund. The grant will provide $1.77 million dollars to the fund to be used to supplement the purchase or conversion of wheelchair accessible vehicle taxicabs in 2013. “Accessible transportation in the City of Chicago is critical to the independence and community participation of people with disabilities,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “By providing accessible taxicabs, we can continue to make Chicago one of the most accessible cities in the world and help Chicagoans with disabilities pursue their goals and aspirations.” “I would like to thank the RTA for awarding the City of Chicago with this New Freedom Grant,” said Commissioner Karen Tamley. “Increasing the funds available for accessible taxicabs, will help us reach our goal of making our taxicab service accessible to all residents and visitors to our city.” The wheelchair accessible vehicle (WAV) taxicab fund was established in the taxi ordinance passed by the City Council in January of 2012, to reimburse a taxi owner’s cost in placing a WAV in to service. As passed in January 2012, the fund is initially seeded by the taxi owners with a $100.00 increase to the medallion license fee for more than 6500 medallions. The City became eligible for the New Freedom Federal grant money because of the WAV fund’s ability to provide a necessary match from over $650,000.00 annual income from the license fees. The WAV funding will provide taxi owners reimbursements up to $15,000 for converting to a WAV and up to $20,000 for the purchase of a new WAV. This funding is another incentive built into the new ordinance to encourage the addition of more WAVs to Chicago’s taxi fleet. Wheelchair accessible taxis are also allowed a longer service life than other taxicab vehicles. Since ordinance passage in January, the number of wheelchair accessible vehicles in Chicago’s taxi fleet has nearly doubled. “This funding is yet another incentive for taxicab owners to add a wheelchair accessible vehicle to their fleet. Adding an accessible vehicle is good for all of Chicago and makes solid economic sense for taxicab owners. Increasing accessibility is a win-win for everyone,” said BACP Commissioner Rosemary Krimbel. The funds will be available to taxicab owners in 2013. Author: Darren Bates | EAPD Founder and PresidentWeCo Logo WeCo is a mission-based for-profit that hires people with physical and cognitive disabilities. WeCo believes that people who face such challenges can, through user experience testing and public outreach, make web site and other online venues more accessible for everyone. WeCo trains people to work as Certified Test Consultants (CTC), not just to deliver powerful user-experience testing services to our clients, but to help them develop as confident, effective professionals. CTCs act as user-experience testing experts for websites and software for compliance with Section 508, ADA and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WeCo’s Accessibility Test Platform is based upon the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) promoted by the US Federal Government for compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) WCAG Guidelines and WeCo’s own internally developed Standards of Access, all of which focus on the Internet access needs of people living with disabilities. WeCo is recognized by the State of Minnesota as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. In WeCo’s first year in business they were featured in the MarketWatchWall Street Journal, Google Finance and Tech{dot}MN. National Organization on Disability Implores Federal Government To Adopt Successful Wounded Warrior1/15/2013
Author: Kaitlin Bitting[email protected] January 15, 2013, Washington, D.C. – The National Organization on Disability (NOD) today released the results of a four-year evaluation of its Wounded Warrior Careers program and called on the U.S. Departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs, along with service providers nationwide, to adopt NOD’s proven, cost-effective model that successfully places severely wounded veterans into the civilian workforce. Lieutenant General (RET) Franklin L. Hagenbeck, a member of the NOD board of directors and former deputy chief of staff for Personnel, Department of the Army, reported that in its first four years, Wounded Warrior Careers (WWC) has served 275 seriously injured veterans, 70% of whom are now employed, receiving education or in training. In contrast, for Wounded Warriors with similar disabilities not enrolled in WWC, it has been reported to NOD that the comparable figure is between 30 and 40%. “The successful transition of Wounded Warriors into civilian careers provides an invaluable opportunity for the United States to continue benefiting from the dedication, talent, and leadership of its bravest young people,” said LTG Hagenbeck during a news conference at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of Disabled American Veterans. “But more fundamentally, making sure that this transition is successful is the ultimate debt we owe to those most severely injured in their country’s service. The question therefore is not whether such an effort is called for, but how creative, smart, and effective that effort can be.” LTG Hagenbeck served as the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 2006 to 2010. In the months immediately following 9/11, he led ground troops during “Operation Anaconda” on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “The dedicated career specialists at NOD – many of whom were wounded veterans themselves – have developed a model that works, at a sustainable cost of about $3,500 per veteran, per year,” said LTG Hagenbeck. “NOD is proud of the work we do on behalf of our veterans and we wish to see the federal government, particularly the Departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs, as well as providers of career services to disabled veterans, embrace that model and expand its reach to many more deserving veterans.” LTG Hagenbeck and NOD President Carol Glazer this week are meeting with Congressional and Pentagon officials to share the report’s findings, which can be downloaded here. More than 500,000 military personnel have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with disabling conditions over the last dozen years, many of them severe enough to be life altering. According to a study by Rand Corporation, as many as one out of every three of the 2.4 million troops that have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan will be returning home with Post Traumatic Stress or Traumatic Brain Injury, the war’s “signature” injuries. “In 2007, the U.S. Army asked NOD to design a solution,” said Glazer. “The result of this collaboration is the Wounded Warrior Careers Demonstration. We have served hundreds of the most severely injured veterans and their families by helping them to begin planning and preparing for careers, enrolling in school or training programs, taking jobs, and moving ahead. In four years, NOD has built a scalable model and helped hundreds of veterans and their families successfully reintegrate.” Glazer noted that since WWC began many similar organizations have been developed, often using the name “wounded warrior.” They help ensure veterans receive the benefits to which they’re entitled, but few help veterans pursue a career. At the same time, many companies are recognizing the value of hiring veterans and are beginning to lower the unemployment rate of this population. While this progress is notable, these programs do not target veterans who’ve returned home with disabling conditions. “Through Wounded Warrior Careers, NOD uniquely operates at that nexus between unemployment and disability,” said Glazer. “Few other organizations—public, private, or corporate—do that. We’re showing that with the right support, even our most seriously disabled veterans can, and do, make a huge contribution to our country’s workforce while regaining a sense of dignity that comes with a career.” Between 2008 and 2012, WWC has served 275 veterans and their families in Texas, Colorado and North Carolina – the chosen locations of the demonstration project. NOD intends to add new sites in 2013 and 2014, to be announced at a later date. As documented in the evaluation, NOD’s model is based on six core principles: Veteran-Centered; Proactive; Prolonged; Holistic; Results Focused; and Collaborative. “A trusting relationship with the veterans we serve is particularly important considering the kinds of injuries that are most common in the WWC population,” said Bill Lockwood, Director, NOD Wounded Warrior Careers. “That’s why we take great care in choosing our Career Specialists, many of whom have served in the military themselves with the unique ability to be empathetic toward the needs of their fellow veterans.” Also in attendance were two veterans working with WWC, Charmetri Bulluck and Ronnie Morgan. Hagenbeck noted that it was particularly meaningful to release the report at Disabled American Veterans (DAV), which was founded in 1920 by disabled veterans returning from World War I to represent their unique interests. It was later congressionally chartered as the official voice of the nation’s wartime disabled veterans and remains an important voice for today’s wounded veterans. Media Contact Kaitlin Bitting [email protected] 856-986-4206 What is a Virtual Operations Support Team? Note: The Texas Governor's Committee on Persons with Disabilities suggests, from a disability perspective: You can also have a Disability Virtual Operations Support Team (DVOST) that via social media actively advises on issues related to people with disabilities and those with access and functional needs during a disaster. VOST can be defined as a team that accomplishes some or all of the following:
Footnote for above: Read full document : http://tinyurl.com/9wlo8pc Additional Information: Virtual Operations Support Team: http://idisaster.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/what-is-a-virtual-operations-support-team/ Author: Darren BatesMr. Bates is the Founder and President of the EAPD. Mr. Bates is widely known as an exceptional relationship builder, widely known for his passion and dedication to championing cultural strategies that support the empowerment of social minority groups and best practices in the employment, advancement and inclusion of people with disabilities. As the year 2011 began, the oldest members of the Baby Boom generation celebrated their 65th birthday. In fact, on that day, today —and every day for the next 19 years, 10,000 baby boomers will reach age 65. The aging of this huge population of Americans (26% of the total U.S. population are Baby Boomers) will dramatically change the composition of our country’s workforce. Many who reach 65 will retire, creating a “Boomer Drain” —taking with them their institutional knowledge and skills. In the next 5 years, it's estimated that the Boomer Drain will create 10 million more jobs than people to fill them and new workforce entrants lack the skill-sets employers require. According to the Department of Labor, US employers will need 30 million new college-educated workers by 2020 but fewer than 23 million people will graduate from US colleges in the next 10 years. How will your company rebuild it’s corporate skills base? While some Baby Boomers will retire, others will choose to age-in-place. According to a 2008 study performed by AARP, many older employees will delay retirement due to retirement account shortfalls, the need to maintain health coverage or the need to pay for health costs for family members. Many of these valuable older employees will, through their life cycle and the natural aging process, acquire an age-related disability. A recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study shows that the majority of companies have made no provisions for older workers and don't know the impact that the aging workforce will have on their recruiting, retention or management policies. Does your company know the best strategies for retaining older, experienced workers? Retention is a critical issue, in large part because turnover can be very costly — total replacement costs range from 90%-200% of annual salary. How will your company manage an aging workforce and minimize declines in workplace performance that are the result of age-related physical, cognitive or sensory disabilities? More than 56 million Americans — nearly one out of five — have a disability, according to the latest U.S. Census. And that number is increasing — with veterans — many of them with life-altering injuries are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan looking to enter the civilian workforce. Of the current 56 million Americans with disabilities, 29 million are between ages 21 and 64. But only 18 percent are employed, according to the Department of Labor, and less than 30 percent of companies have disability specific diversity policies or programs in place, according to a study conducted by the Kessler Foundation, the National Organization on Disability (NOD) and Harris Interactive. “Employees with disabilities are often an overlooked diversity segment in many companies in the U.S.,” said Meg O’Connell, vice president of corporate programs at the NOD. “Considering what we know about the performance and potential of employees with disabilities, and given projected labor shortages, that’s a mistake we can’t afford — especially considering pending federal regulatory changes that will require federal contractors to increase the population of individuals with disabilities in their workforce.” In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor may substantially revise regulations governing non-discrimination requirements and affirmative action for veterans and individuals with disabilities — proposing a series of changes for federal contractors and subcontractors, including setting a hiring goal of 7% of workers with disabilities and requiring indexing and tracking of employees with disabilities. If so, organizations will have to make fundamental changes to the way they manage these employees. In light of potential legislative changes and demographic trends, diversity leaders encourage organizations to start now — raise awareness through training and workshops, increase support for multi-generational-employees with disabilities, turn compliance into profits by developing comprehensive workforce strategies dedicated to building a culture of access and inclusion in the modern workplace.℠ Disability IS Diversity Given these trends, expanding diversity and outreach strategies for hiring people with disabilities, including our wounded warriors, and developing strategies to manage a multi-genrational workforce is critical to the long-term growth and success of any modern workplace. Traditionally, workplace diversity has focused on race and gender, but in more recent years this concept has evolved to include a much wider range of attributes, including disability. Disability is a unique diversity category that crosses all racial, gender, education, and socioeconomic lines. Companies across the country have begun to realize that engaging people with disabilities in the employment mainstream is good for business. Companies such as Walgreens, Lowe’s, AMC Theaters, Home Depot and Microsoft can attest that, people with disabilities are a great asset. New research from Walgreens suggests that people with disabilities are a particularly stable workforce. A study of its distribution centers by the American Society of Safety Engineers found that workers with disabilities had a turnover rate 48% lower than that of workers without disabilities, with medical costs 67% lower and time-off expenses 73% lower. Advantages of Retention and Accommodations With the costs associated with candidate searches, new employee training and lost productivity during periods of insufficient staffing, an interactive accommodation process for employees that face age-related disabilities is also critical to avoid the Boomer Drain. All to often, employers connect providing accommodations with its legislative meaning in the workplace. When actually they should see providing reasonable accommodations as a way to retain good employees and essential to extending consideration to valuable employees, with or without disabilities, who are facing work-life challenges. By identifying and addressing the needs of their employees, employers will benefit twice: first from their desire and ability to stay and second for saving on recruitment and training expenses. Employing a Diverse Workforce Gives Your Business a Strategic Advantage What’s the third largest market segment in the United States? It’s people with disabilities, 56 million strong —which surpasses Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans, as well as Generation X and teens. Add in their families, friends, and associates, and you get a trillion dollars in purchasing power. Research shows that consumers both with and without disabilities favor businesses that employ people with disabilities. Ask business leaders who employ people with disabilities and you’ll hear about the benefits such as: higher productivity, lower employee turnover, new ideas and perspectives, better understanding of customers, access to new markets and enhanced corporate reputation. But it takes more than just diversity to realize the benefits. Progressive business leaders know that in order to thrive, their workplace also needs to be inclusive. A Strong Workforce is an Inclusive Workforce What’s the difference between a workplace that is diverse and one that is both diverse and also has a culture of access and inclusion? The difference is the workplace that is both diverse and has a culture of access and inclusion is free of any discriminatory practices (written or unspoken), free from inaccessible facilities and equipment and all employees feel they are valued and belong. —Your employees are more likely to feel that way when they are treated with respect by their supervisors and peers, given the chance to use their talents to the fullest and assured of equal opportunities to move ahead. The real key to building a culture of access and inclusion in the modern workplace℠ is your attitude as the company’s leader. By openly acknowledging and respecting diversity, extending consideration to all employees, with or without disabilities, who face work-life challenges, making sure everyone is aware of your inclusion strategies and communicating your dedication to diversity, access and inclusion in your employment brand. If you’re willing to be the champion for such fundamental change, you’ll distinguish your business from those of your competitors. The Employment Alliance for People with Disabilities (EAPD) is proud to recognize Carol Glazer, President of the National Organization on Disability, for challenging our nation’s Fortune 500 CEOs to resolve to hire more people with disabilities in 2013. Please join me and the members of the EAPD on our journey to drive innovation, foster creativity, expand diversity and guide business strategies to build a culture of access and inclusion in the modern workplace.℠ It’s a proven path to continued success. Darren Bates ©2012 Employment Alliance for People with Disabilities All Rights Reserved Thank you to New York City Comptroller John Liu for embracing and recognizing the value of diversity and inclusion. The "Taxi of Tomorrow" should be measured on how well it provides integrated, inclusive and spontaneous access for all. ACCESSIBLE TRANSPORTATION is essential to ensuring independence and equity for people of all ages and abilities —it provides equal access to the community, employment and training. For people with disabilities and older Americans, accessible transportation offers choices, flexibility and the ability to live a spontaneous life! Everyone who wants to meet a friend, go to a movie, job interview, to school or anywhere should have the right and the opportunity to take a taxi to their destination. All Taxis of Tomorrow Must Serve Disabled: Liu Author: Rebecca HenelyReach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 718-260-4564. Queens city councilmen from opposite sides of the political spectrum have thrown their support behind city Comptroller John Liu’s rejection of the proposed new yellow cabs for not being handicapped accessible. “I support taxis for all, not just taxis for some,” Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said in a statement. “We need a fleet that serves all New Yorkers. Halfway measures are inadequate. Our disabled community deserves full access.” The car manufacturer Nissan won the city’s request for proposals in May 2011 to create New York’s new taxis now that Ford’s Crown Victoria is being discontinued. Nissan’s cabs, the NV200 design, include sliding doors, passenger air bags, passenger climate controls, flat seats, more luggage room, passenger charging stations and reading lights. Liu officially nixed the city’s contract with Nissan to create the new “Taxi of Tomorrow” Friday, saying the agreement has the potential to violate the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act and open up the city to lawsuits. “We should not go ahead with a so-called Taxi of Tomorrow that perpetuates a shamefully separate and unequal cab fleet for another decade,” Liu said in a statement. The comptroller’s criticism has gained the support of some accessibility advocates as well as Dromm and Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone). “The city has a major decision to make on a taxi of the future, and we must consider the future of all New Yorkers including those with disabilities,” Halloran said in a statement, adding that a manufacturer had promised to create taxis that would be handicapped-accessible and made locally. The city Law Department had previously cast doubt upon whether the comptroller’s office had the power to reject the contract, and the city Taxi & Limousine Commission previously claimed that the organization was in compliance with the ADA. The commission cited the 2,000 handicapped-accessible yellow cabs that would be added to the city’s streets as part of the outerborough taxi plan, but a Manhattan Supreme Court judge struck down the plan as unconstitutional in August, leaving their future in jeopardy. Liu said to make the new cabs handicapped-accessible would require a yellow cab medallion owner to pay an estimate of $14,000, or half the cost of the car, to put a wheelchair ramp in the trunk. He also said having the new cabs not be handicapped-accessible could make it more difficult to evacuate people with disabilities in a disaster, such as Superstorm Sandy. “We must not allow New York’s yellow taxi fleet to become a symbol of exclusion that tramples the rights of wheelchair users,” Liu said. Author: TOSHIO MERONEKToshio Meronek has published or has pieces forthcoming at In These Times, Hyphen, Bitch, Huffington Post and SF Weekly, and was an editor at The Abolitionist, the newspaper of the anti-prison industrial complex organization "People First language would contribute even more to the positive and the provocative aspects of this reporting --particularly since the story involves disability rights. Still, this article by Toshio Meronek is compelling and informative; and makes you consider how we, as disability advocates, can make effective change." (Photo: Eric.Parker) Disabled are seen as a force to be reckoned with as more file lawsuits and protest for enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which some politicians seek to scrap. Born and raised in New York City, Simi Linton knows that "There are times when you just need a cab." Like the time she learned her husband was in the hospital having emergency surgery. As soon as she heard, Linton left her Upper West Side apartment, headed for a hospital across town. "Cabs were whizzing by me, but none were stopping." The fair-skinned, glasses-wearing, 64-year-old author/filmmaker with curly, brown hair and a penchant for scarves wasn't being skipped over for her race, age or her fashion choices. Linton was being profiled for another reason: her wheelchair. In Linton's many decades as a wheelchair-using New Yorker, she has only successfully hailed a cab twice, and not for a lack of trying. Today, fewer than 2 percent of the city's taxis are wheelchair accessible. Since the subway isn't accessible and owning a van outfitted for a wheelchair is prohibitively expensive and inconvenient, that leaves the slowest, least-dependable mode of transportation: the bus. Linton is a plaintiff in a suit against the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to make its taxi system fully accessible, like the system she'd seen years before in London, which started converting its fleet to be completely accessible in 1989. But she and her class action suit co-plaintiffs (Christopher Noel and United Spinal Association) had antagonists at City Hall. Linton is also one of a growing number of outspoken disability rights activists who expect and demand Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance rather than quietly hope that able-bodied people will abide by the law. Across the country, they are pushing back against threats from politicians toward its enforcement. The Would-Be ADA Dismantlers Using the humble taxi driver as his foil, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came out loudly in opposition to the lawsuit. He argued to the press that accessible cabs are more expensive than your typical Crown Victoria, and he also made the classic mistake of saying in public the type of thing politicians usually keep to themselves - his unfiltered feelings on the topic. Disability groups were understandably offended when he told reporters that "it's too dangerous" for wheelchair users to hail cabs in the city, and absurdly, that they "sit too far from the driver to establish a dialogue" and therefore "wouldn't tip well." (This from a man who has a personal driver and admits to never taking cabs.) Linton and her co-plaintiffs' initial case was successful, but earlier this year, the Taxi and Limo Commission appealed the decision and prevailed. Disability Rights Advocates, the legal team representing Linton, is currently mulling its next move. Linton says she's ready when they are. Since the ADA was enacted in 1991, in some areas accessibility has improved, but there are still obstacles almost anywhere you go. As Linton says, "Some of the more visible accoutrements of access may seem, to the uninitiated, in place - handicapped parking spaces, a wide stall in a few bathrooms, access on buses and things like that." But "equity and integration have not been achieved by any stretch of the imagination." Disabled people have a much harder time getting jobs than non-disabled people (as of November, about 18 percent were employed, compared with 64 percent of non-disabled adults), and affordable accessible housing is scarce. Even so, the mayor of New York isn't the only one who wants to see the law watered down - or gone completely. Additional shame should be reserved for these notable examples: Clint Eastwood, Hollywood gentry man (net worth: $375 million), former mayor of Carmel, California, and one of the Republican National Convention's most entertaining guests of all time, fought off an ADA suit against him and his non-accessible resort in 2000, then ran a cynical campaign to wipe out the section of the ADA that makes defendants who lose pay their opposition's legal fees. ("It's just not fair, and I'm just a common person speaking for fairness," he told CBS News at the time.) Kentuckian Tea Partier Rand Paul ran for Senate in 2010 on a platform that called for the complete repeal of the ADA - and he won the seat. The same year, Congress failed to include in health care reform the Community Choice Act, which would have allowed more disabled people to receive Medicaid at home instead of segregating them in nursing homes. Last October, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein that makes it less attractive to sue businesses that fail to comply with the ADA, by, among other things, reducing the amount in damages that disabled plaintiffs can seek, in most cases from $4,000 to $2,000. And on December 4, conservative pundit Rick Santorum tweeted to his 216,000 followers: "Thank you to all who stood with us in this fight against #CRPD," after Senate Republicans blocked ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (#CRPD), which would have affirmed many of the ADA's provisions on an international scale. (Specifically, Santorum gave virtual high-fives to Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Michael Farris, founder of an ultra-rightwing libertarian organization, masquerading as a nonprofit for home-schooling, called the Home School Legal Defense Association.) Lawsuit Stalking? When friendlier tactics (education or mediation) don't work, lawsuits are the principal official mechanism for achieving enforcement where there is resistance from businesses and local governments. In some places, ADA suits have become their own cottage industry, with some claimants filing hundreds of them per year via private attorneys who focus on ADA law. Not surprisingly, this garners resentment from the business owners who are the targets of these cases. However, the damages a disabled claimant receives in a successful lawsuit, in many states, is nothing, and as a result, getting representation from a lawyer isn't always easy, because the lawyer has less to gain financially. Eve Hill, a senior legal counselor at the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, says, "That's really why you get disability rights lawyers who specialize in disability civil rights as opposed to personal injury lawyers who dabble in it. You mostly do get people who, this is what they want to do." Hill notes that "some" local US Attorney's Offices are "very interested in civil rights work . . . and do quite a bit of disability enforcement in their own localities," but "there's simply not the resources in the federal government to take care of all of the millions of business and thousands and thousands of state and local government issues that are out there." The Civil Rights Division at the DOJ has fewer than 100 disability-focused lawyers, investigators and technical assistants for the entire country. Enter people like Morse Mehrban. Cast in media mentions as a predatory attorney out for a dollar (with only a little irony, he once described himself as a "bounty hunter"), the Los Angeles-based Mehrban has a lot of enemies and very little sympathy for noncompliant business owners. Since 2005, Mehrban has represented dozens of disabled clients in hundreds of ADA cases. California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which effectively enhances the ADA, allows disabled claimants in that state up to $4,000 in damages. Partially because of this, California accounts for 42 percent of ADA lawsuits in the US, according to "Targeting ADA Violators," an article in the journal California Lawyer in January, 2012, by Tom McNichol. Also partially because of this, California is one of the more accessible of the 50 states. From a purely monetary standpoint, small business owners can access federal tax credits and deductions for accessibility improvements (up to $15,000 per year) and could gain from new customers who are part of the more than 50 million disabled people in the United States today. Still, many don’t bother changing their ways. Mehrban brushes off resentful business owners, who typically claim ignorance of the law. "When I go driving on the freeway and there's no posted speed limit, then I decide to go 85 and I get a ticket, I can't say, 'Well there was no posted speed limit, and I didn't know,' " he points out. "If somebody decides to do business, they have to comply with the whole slew of regulations that go with that, whether they know about them or not." New construction is expected to meet ADA standards, but once they are open, a restaurant or even a public library often doesn't receive follow-up inspections. In Syracuse, New York, members of the group ARISE have spent years trying to get access to their county courthouse. A lawsuit and public pressure are helping to make Madison County's hall of justice the last in the state where people with certain disabilities can't physically enter. As a disabled person, that can mean months of waiting for alternative arrangements for any services offered at the court, and no jury duty (which while it might seem like a plus for some, shows that the justice system doesn’t care about disabled voices). Vince Rogowski, a plaintiff in the case, says he and ARISE chose the courthouse "because if you can't get local government to comply with the ADA, how can you ask businesses to comply with the ADA?" After a six-year fight, Madison county administrators have finally "submitted a schematic of the improvements on one courtroom, and only one courtroom, to be accessible," says Rogowski. Unfortunately, there were several mistakes that will delay the renovations even longer, including incorrect measurements for a wheelchair ramp. "They really screwed it up," he adds. In his opinion, there's a clear need for follow-up inspections when it comes to buildings. "Every state has their code enforcers. The code enforcer, it should be their job that new buildings not only meet the building codes and electrical codes, but also the ADA codes." At the moment, in Madison County and many others, "they flatly refuse." Calls to the Madison County code enforcers' office were not returned. Beyond Courtrooms Since the resources and knowledge it takes to initiate an ADA lawsuit can be restrictive (and it'd take a lot more attorneys to sue the country into compliance), some disabled people are bypassing the legal system and protesting in bigger numbers than ever before. Back in the 1980s, David Wittie, a Texas staff member of ADAPT (the loudest and arguably one of the most effective national disability rights direct action groups), worked at a bus company in Austin. "My job was to give information on how to ride the bus from point A to point B," he says in a buttery Southern accent. At the time, Wittie couldn’t ride those buses, because none of Austin’s public transit was wheelchair-access equipped. As a wheelchair user, he "thought it would be a good idea to work at the transit company, because that way I could influence them to make wheelchair access a reality." But it didn't work out like that. A few "radical, fringe people in wheelchairs" kept protesting, trying to get access to public transportation. Their consistent noisemaking succeeded where Wittie's attempts to work inside the system failed. "Austin, Texas, has the third 100 percent wheelchair-equipped transit system in the country, and the first in Texas, and I found out that demonstrations work. . . . I was working inside the system, and I found out that didn't work to make effective change that I wanted to see." As he began going to ADAPT meetings, other members were wary at first, thinking that the bus company had sent in a mole, but they eventually accepted him into the fold. "Lawsuits are one of the methods for enforcement, but they're not the only effective method. We as disability rights advocates use every means at our disposal. Sometimes it requires lawsuits, sometimes it's an education campaign, sometimes it's negotiations, sometimes we use the media, as well, to shame the ADA violator." Wittie's fellow ADAPT-er Jennifer McPhail participated in her first protest in 1990. It's another case where a lawsuit wasn't the right tactic. "We had taken over then-governor Ann Richards' reception room and spent the night, and as a result, the next morning she met with someone from ADAPT, and that was the beginning of the waiver that we have here that allows people to transition into the community from nursing homes." Disabled protesters are dealt with in unique ways by arbiters of a justice system ingrained with ableism. In 1999, Wittie was one of the "Bush Nine" - disabled activists arrested for handcuffing themselves to the fence outside then-governor George W. Bush's mansion, protesting being coerced into nursing homes because the state would not fund at-home care. But when several of them showed up to serve their five-day jail sentence, they were turned away and asked to return in two weeks, because at the time, the Travis County jail was not accessible. In California, jails in Los Angeles and the Bay Area are currently subjects of class action lawsuits; almost 15 years after Wittie's arrest, and in one of the more accessible states in the United States, some disabled prisoners can't do things like use the showers, participate in programs that might abate their sentences, or eat with fellow prisoners. At recent ADAPT protests, cops used suppression techniques such as fastening plastic cable ties (PlastiCuffs) around the wheels of wheelchairs so their users couldn't roll away. These protesters aren't going away anytime soon, so expect police departments to come up with more codified ways of handling them in the future to minimize public blowback. Images of disabled people being harmed by cops during protestshave quickly gone viral on the web, showing clear examples of mistreatment and recklessness and drawing plenty of criticism in the media. Simi Linton remembers feeling optimistic when she heard the ADA had passed back in 1990. Finally, disabled people were being recognized "as a force to be reckoned with, and as a rights-based movement." Linton finds hope in the fact that the disability rights movement has "definitely gotten bigger" since then. Now, people with disabilities are "not defined by our individual conditions, but defined by our membership in a marginalized group called disabled people." She says that “some issues have been taken care of with the passage of the ADA," but there's been a lot of backlash from Rand Paul and company, and little to no enforcement in many areas. A couple of decades after its passing, everyday obstacles persist, in movie theaters without captioning, airplanes without accessible bathrooms and government buildings most assume to be accessible. Forceful approaches like litigation and direct action are only going to increase as politicians and businesses keep people "in cycles of poverty and dependency," as the National Council on Disability noted in its 2012 ADA Progress Report. Jennifer McPhail and other ADAPT-ers from across the country recently converged in Washington state to protest the government's bias toward the nursing home industry. There, they succeeded in getting Washington's governor Christine Gregoire to back down from challenging a lawsuit, M.R. v. Dreyfus, which helps to keep some disabled people in their communities rather than sending them to nursing facilities. According to McPhail, "The biggest thing about the ADA and the advances that we've made is the individual people changed. There's an expectation of equality now, whereas when I was a little girl, just getting out the door was difficult. But now I can expect to go the movies and not have to sit in the aisle." This "changes who you are in the world, and eventually how you perceive yourself." The greatest advancement of the past 23 years, she says, is this expectation of equality in the disability community. The still separate, unequal access is far from meeting these expectations. "And that's why more is being done, more aggressively." TOSHIO MERONEKToshio Meronek has published or has pieces forthcoming at In These Times, Hyphen, Bitch, Huffington Post and SF Weekly, and was an editor at The Abolitionist, the newspaper of the anti-prison industrial complex organization Critical Resistance, for two years. SOURCE: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13499-great-expectations
NOD President Challenges 'Fortune 500' CEOs To Resolve To Hire More People With Disabilities In 201312/26/2012
Author: Darren BatesMr. Bates is the Founder and President of the Employment Alliance for People with Disabilities, an award winning, non-partisan non-profit organization comprised of businesses enterprise and service professionals working jointly to achieve the highest success and empowerment of people with disabilities. NEW YORK (December 26, 2012) – As a New Year approaches, Carol Glazer, President of the National Organization on Disability (NOD), is challenging our nation’s Fortune 500 CEOs to consider an entirely new approach to their New Year’s resolutions: Hire more people with disabilities in 2013. Now celebrating its 30thanniversary, NOD promotes the full participation of America’s 56 million people with disabilities in all aspects of life. “New Year’s resolutions are largely personal aspirations, often tied to our health or our family,” said Glazer. “I wonder if we might be more successful in keeping our pledges if they were bigger than ourselves. So this year, I’m challenging our Fortune 500 CEOs to resolve to hire more people with disabilities. It’s a commitment to the diversity in our country. But more importantly to your CFO, it will boost your bottom line.” Glazer notes that America is facing an impending workforce crisis as Baby Boomers age and retire. By 2030, roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population will be aged 65 and older, and America will need millions of new workers to take the place of retirees in the workforce. Yet, according to the latest NOD/Kessler Foundation Survey of Americans with Disabilities, 80 percent of people with disabilities are not working. “Companies across the country have begun to realize that hiring talented candidates with disabilities is good for business,” added Meg O’Connell, NOD’s Vice President, Corporate Programs. “A diverse workforce is a strong workforce. And the disability market, which includes customers with disabilities and their spheres of influence, represents $1 trillion in disposable income worldwide. In this country specifically, people with disabilities control $247 billion in disposable income and represent a consumer population equal to the size of the U.S. Hispanic market. People with disabilities are an untapped talent resource, and one that businesses should prioritize in 2013.” Glazer says for most employers, taking the first steps can be intimidating. But there are three things CEOs can do today to empower their human resources manager to get started:
NOD’s innovative Bridges to Business program has a proven track record of helping C-Suite executives successfully launch diversity programs. NOD helps employers to effectively recruit, hire, train, and retain jobseekers with disabilities. Bridges to Business also assists agencies that provide job training and placement services to jobseekers with disabilities in working more effectively with businesses. “America’s Fortune 500 CEOs – frankly, all CEOs – are in a position to do something truly meaningful in 2013,” added Glazer. “And it’s not based in altruism, but rather good business sense. Consider it a New Year’s resolution worth keeping.” About the National Organization on Disability For nearly three decades, the National Organization on Disability has been a galvanizing force, a clearinghouse of ideas and policy, and an authoritative voice for people with every kind of disability. Through initiatives like its Wounded Warrior Career program, the National Organization on Disability demonstrates effective ways of promoting employment opportunities for people with disabilities, evaluates what works, and communicates successful approaches. |
Blog Archives
May 2017
Blog Categories
All
Subscribe to EAPD RSS Feed |