Remove Barriers In Employment For Disabled People

By Fadila Lagadien

DISABLED PEOPLE ARE “SICK”

It is the accepted belief that as disabled people we cannot engage in gainful or meaningful employment as we are “sick”. Sick people belong in hospital! For this reason disabled people are placed in sheltered employment to “Keep them busy,”. I would like to challenge the existing perception by providing an alternative viewpoint.

MY OPINION: BARRIERS

In my opinion the major reason for the non-participation of disabled people in society, particularly in the workplace, is that we live in a barrier infested society!

The prime culprit among barriers is people’s negative attitude. If we lived in the ideal world, everyone would have a positive (non-stereotyping) attitude, but we don’t. This reflects in the legal practices of our society. For example, disabled people are not allowed to adopt children; a disabled woman receiving a disability grant will lose it should she get married, to name but two. Many artificial barriers are also placed in our way and this can be seen in the way in which disabled people have difficulty in accessing bank loans and buying insurance, especially medical aid, in the same way as non-disabled people, because we are viewed as liabilities.

If non-disabled society had a positive attitude towards us, the other barriers would be non-existent. These are manifested in the inaccessibility of the built environment which denies disabled people freedom of movement. However, the denial of access to equal opportunities in employment, education, sports and recreation as well as culture and religion are barriers that are more difficult to correct than the built environment. The denial of these opportunities is complicated through the lack of appropriate resources which results from uninformed development planning.

This in turn, is largely due to the denial of self-representation by disabled people in matters which concern us. Poor planning is also a result of the failure in communication – verbal and non-verbal as well as written. This is evident in the way in which little effort is made by development agents to communicate with disabled people who cannot access traditional forms of communication.

All the barriers that I have mentioned deny disabled people access to employment. Contrary to the general belief that disability is the individual’s problem, the view of many disabled people is that it affects the whole society, and it therefore has an obligation to remove barriers and become an agent of change.

LACK OF AWARENESS

I believe that these barriers exist in the first place due to a lack of awareness, thus a precondition to the removal of barriers in society is awareness raising. By observing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD to which South Africa is a signatory), we place emphasis on awareness raising which is Article 8 of the UNCRPD.

For the first time in the history of South Africa we have a constitution that outlaws discrimination on the basis of among others, disability. Our constitution will be rather useless if we don’t have measures to protect our constitutional rights. To this end South Africa has developed legislation on various socio-economic matters and one such issue is employment. The two most important pieces of legislation with regards to employment are the Employment Equity Act and the Labour relations Act.

In the main, these Acts gives and protects our employment rights. In the main it defines disability and makes the accommodation of disabled employees obligatory. For these reasons we should inform ourselves about our rights and obligations contained therein.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE

Given the definition of disability and the obligation on employers to reasonably accommodate disabled employees, what are the implications for both the employer and the employee? Both the Ministers of Labour and the Department of Public Service and Administration need to give some thought to spend money on awareness raising programmes to address the anxieties and prejudices of both employers and employees. They need to do much more to address the way in which the employers will need to reasonably accommodate disabled employees.

To neglect addressing any of the above while forging ahead with the employment of disabled people has, and will continue to set us up to fail! And, for the Department Labour to believe that sheltered employment has indeed made the necessary accommodations for disabled people is to believe that pigs can fly!

To give impetus to the employment of disabled people, government agreed to have 2% employed within ten years of the NEDLAC 1998 Presidential Jobs Summit. However, in 2015 very few Departments have met this target. Government as a whole has definitely not met it yet. Placing quotas on employers will not necessarily realise equitable employment for disabled people; it might only realise the numbers.

REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

To achieve equity, certain pre-conditions are necessary, including a commitment to the success of affirmative action (AA) from top management. Recruitment and selection are crucial and complicated areas of AA as they deal with matching the person with the job and not vice-versa.

For example, Deaf persons must not only be considered for jobs that require little or no verbal communication. When considering a Deaf person for a position, interpreter services must form part of the equation right from the onset. Appropriate technology should also be considered in consultation with the employee. Fire alarms in public places must be indicated by using visual signals.

For a blind or a partially sighted person an accessible work environment might mean adding a voice synthesizer to the computer, keyboard interface and a Braille printer, a large computer screen with enlarged text and high definition colours, and speaking and reading software.

For a wheelchair user or a person with mobility impairment, obvious features such as ramps and lifts in place of stairs are required. In addition, wide enough spaces to aid smooth mobility and accessible toilet facilities with grab rails as prescribed in the building regulations of 1986 are needed. This however, is not all – a quadriplegic (loss of movement and/or sensation in all four limbs) can be accommodated by technological interfaces such as speaking and reading software.

Added to the technological assistance, people with all the types of disabilities mentioned also make use of human assistance. Human assistance may include drivers, interpreters or personal assistants (someone who assists in the performance of personal functions such as bathing, dressing, going to the toilet, transferring, eating, etc.).

The enabling measures listed here barely scratch the surface of what is available and possible to integrate disabled people into the open labour market. I would caution that employers not focus on the costs of the provision of these accommodations (it is often a one off capital expense) but on equity, human rights, dignity and justice.

Employee privileges and benefits should be accessible to all. AA has to be seen to advance equality in the enjoyment of human rights. AA is therefore a necessity which will only result from the adoption of a holistic approach and as an integral part of the employment process.

CONCLUSION

Thus, the time has come for South Africa to review its approach towards the employment of disabled people and take a step towards a more specific, integrated strategy.