Southern California Job Market : Weathering The Workplace : FITNESS : Employers find those with physical handicaps can do a first-rate job.

When Hewlett-Packard was trying to fill a high-level position for a research scientist, a job that required some travel, the top contender was a man with a doctorate who also had a physical disability, which necessitated the use of a wheelchair.

So Hewlett-Packard contacted the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), a unique hot line that acts as a clearinghouse for information for employers seeking special accommodations for workers with disabilities. (The phone number for JAN is 1-800-526-7234.)

The network was set up five years ago by the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities to help employers determine what accommodations are necessary to help a person with a disability perform a job.

On the network’s recommendation, Hewlett-Packard bought a portable hand control device with a rod-and-pulley system that attaches directly to a car’s brake and accelerator and works like a hand brake on a bicycle. The $200 device can be installed quickly in any car, making it possible for the job applicant to use any vehicle in the company fleet. The man with the disability got the job.

“Ten years ago, JAN didn’t exist and the product probably didn’t either,” said Robert Ingram, affirmative action representative at Hewlett-Packard, the Palo Alto-based electronics giant. “I would have tried to track something down, but there’s no guarantee I could have found anything to accommodate this man. Who knows? He may still have gotten the job. But he certainly would have been restricted as to some of the things he could be given to do in that job.”

Attitudes toward people with disabilities and their role in the work place are changing. Indeed, a recent survey by Louis Harris & Associates of New York found that:

- The overwhelming majority of managers give employees with disabilities a good or excellent rating.

- Nearly all employees with disabilities do their jobs as well or better than other employees in similar jobs.

- Eight out of 10 department heads and line managers feel employees with disabilities are no harder to supervise than those without.

- Sixty percent of top managers said their companies can provide in-house training for people with disabilities.

“We are getting away from the idea that people with disabilities are sick and need care,” said Frances Gracechild, executive director of Resources for Independent Living in Sacramento. “That view is really a form of discrimination, much like the discrimination suffered by blacks and women.”

The difference, she said, is that while minorities may be disliked, “disabled people are liked, sort of like sacred cows. ‘Here, let us give you a nice convalescence hospital to live in the rest of your life.’ But that ‘kindness’ is really denying people with disabilities equal rights to participation within the community.”

And it is that misdirected sentiment on the part of the non-disabled population that many advocates believe has provided the biggest hurdle to those with disabilities.

“It is not just the lack of ramps and physical barriers that have kept us from participating,” said Ramona Garcia, who serves on the California Governor’s Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons. “It is the attitudinal barriers that are toughest of all.”

The biggest hurdle for Ron Brown, an associate at the California Human Rights/Fair Housing Commission, “was proving to myself what I always knew I could do.”

“Growing up, I heard a lot about what I would never be able to do as an adult because of my disability,” Brown said. “I grew up with shows like Andy Griffith with a real bread winner who could take care of life and I always wanted to be one of those fathers. I don’t have any children yet but I have proven to myself that I could be that breadwinner.”

Today approximately one-third of the 36 million people with disabilities are employed, according to a recent survey by the National Organization on Disability. But that means two-thirds are still unemployed.

“We’ve never had any decent data in the past, and we feel that more people with disabilities are working today than ever before,” said Mary Kaye Rubin, legislative analyst for the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities. “The sad fact is that this two-thirds unemployment rate is probably an improvement.

“The good news is that the statistics indicate that the U.S. labor force is declining, while the number of new jobs is on the rise,” she said. “The baby boom is over. Companies have discovered they have to go after new sources, which will be good for minorities and women, of course. We hope that it will spill over for people with disabilities.”

With economic independence, people with disabilities can take control of their own destiny, said Gracechild.

“But they must do that by applying for jobs and expecting to get them,” said Gracechild, who says people should use the equal employment opportunity laws to protect their rights. “If people with disabilities are willing to settle for second-class participation, that is what they are going to get.”

Advocates for people with disabilities say everyone benefits from the increased independence and participation of this part of the population.

“This new involvement in the work force by people with disabilities is a godsend to the economy,” said Gracechild. “If you look at the health and welfare budget, it is going up exponentially.”

Today workers with disabilities hold almost every kind of job in Wendy’s restaurants. McDonald’s Corp. has a McJobs program. International Business Machines Corp. said it hired its first person with a disability in 1914 and approximately 4% of its current workers have disabilities. For four years, Apple Computer Inc. has had an office of special education and rehabilitation which works to increase awareness and implementation of microcomputer technology for children and adults with disabilities. Honeywell Corp. has a Handicapped Employees Council to help employees with disabilities reach career goals.

Even the athletic image of a fighter pilot is not immune to change. At Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, a test pilot’s success depends on a 2,500-member civilian team that includes about 250 people who have the “right stuff” in intelligence, training and motivation--along with physical disabilities.

Accommodations to allow someone with a disability to perform on a par with other employees are often simple. JAN’s consultants try to steer employers away from stereotypes by dealing with individual functional limitations, such as mobility, sight or hearing impairments, instead of a particular disability, such as cerebral palsy.

“If you stand back and look at a job from a functional standpoint, many activities within a job are often unnecessary,” said Barbara Judy, a JAN consultant. “Take work hours, for example. A flexible schedule for someone with mobility problems will allow him to avoid rush hour. Or for a person who is diabetic, allowing him to break a company rule of no food at the desk can relieve him of a lot of anxiety. Or for someone who tires easily, maybe someone who had polio or someone with multiple sclerosis, a flexible schedule to allow for several short breaks makes a job much easier.”

Despite fears to the contrary, Juanita Campbell of the President’s committee said: “It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to make the work site accessible. It might be a 5-cent pencil or cutting the legs off a desk to accommodate someone in a wheelchair. And there are accommodations, like curb cuts, that benefit us all.”

JAN surveyed employers recently in order to dispel some of the myths and to evaluate the costs of accommodating employees with disabilities. Of the respondents, 31% said the changes cost nothing, 19% said the costs were $1 to $50, and another 19% put the price tag at between $50 and $500.

For example, a JAN consultant helped a heavy construction company keep a long-time driver who suffered a back injury. The consultant located a special seat that absorbed almost all vehicle vibration and, for the price of a $1,000 seat, the company kept an experienced worker.

Computer technology has probably had more impact than anything else in opening up career possibilities for those with disabilities.

“Personal computers are the great equalizer,” said Alan Brightman, manager of the innovative education program at Apple Computer in Cupertino. “A computer doesn’t have any preconceived expectations about you just because you have a label attached. It allows us to approach someone with a disability as someone who can, rather than someone who can’t.”

The options a computer offers are dramatic. For someone who is nonvocal, the computer provides speech. For a blind person, the computer can print in Braille. These people not only work more efficiently but do things previously considered impossible.

While there are some federal protections for people with disabilities, they are not of the scope as those for minorities and women. The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 was perhaps the first major step forward for those with disabilities. It was followed by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which mandated that federal contractors take affirmative action to hire and promote people with disabilities. But federal contractors provide only 50% of the nation’s jobs, and there are no designated quotas or goals for hiring the disabled.

The Education of Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which was responsible for helping thousands of children with disabilities to join the mainstream, may have the most profound effect on future employment opportunities for people with disabilities. The act opened the education process to children with disabilities and, of equal importance to advocates, it exposed non-disabled children to people who have physical differences and laid the groundwork for future understanding.