Cancer Patients Battle Not Only Disease but Also Workplace Bias

“It’s cancer . . . “

This year, according to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 127,500 Californians will hear those words.

Suddenly, their worlds will be turned upside down.

“The first thing they think is, ‘I might die!’ ” says L. Susan Slavin, a prominent New York legal advocate for the catastrophically ill, who won a landmark ruling last year that bolstered the rights of cancer survivors. “Then they worry about their insurance coverage. And then they worry about finding the best specialist.

“But they don’t worry about their jobs.”

Perhaps they should. While battling the disease, many cancer sufferers also must fight discrimination in the workplace.

Last year, Working Woman magazine and Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, a leading biotech firm, conducted a random telephone sampling of 500 cancer survivors, 100 supervisors and 100 co-workers. The poll’s results were troubling. Employees with cancer were fired or laid off five times more than other employees. Twenty-five percent of employees with cancer reported being demoted, denied raises, refused promotions and/or stripped of responsibilities. An additional 10% of respondents undergoing chemotherapy reported that spouses or family members had lost their jobs as a result of caring for them.

These are the less-talked-about economic and social side effects of cancer.

Sometimes workplace bias is innocent but misguided. A well-intentioned supervisor may insist on lightening a cancer survivor’s workload, or force the worker to take time off until her cancer treatments are completed.

At other times, the bias is more pernicious.

A Westside cosmetics saleswoman who was undergoing chemotherapy was forced to resign because her supervisors deemed her appearance “unappealing.” A cashier whose arm had become swollen from lymphoma was denied permission to sit down at her workstation during her shift. A manager who recovered from cancer surgery returned to work after a six-month leave of absence, only to find that his job had been given to a subordinate.

“Persons with cancer may confide [about] their illness to their employers, who slap them on the back and say, ‘We’re with you all the way,’ ” says Slavin. “But when the hair falls off and the wig goes on, and their work schedules must be adjusted for chemotherapy, suddenly the support may disappear.”

Such actions may be illegal. Several federal and state laws protect cancer survivors from discrimination in the workplace. The Americans With Disabilities Act, which applies to companies with 15 or more employees, prohibits the firing, demoting and suspending of benefits for disabled persons who are able to perform their jobs’ “essential functions.” Under the act, employers must offer disabled employees “reasonable accommodations,” including time off for cancer treatments, flexible work hours and workstation modifications, provided the accommodations do not cause the employers undue hardship.

The Family and Medical Leave Act, which affects companies with 50 or more employees, affords workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave within a one-year period for personal or family illness. And Section 12940 of the California Government Code, which covers companies with five or more employees, specifically bars workplace discrimination against cancer survivors.

For persons newly diagnosed with cancer, “work can be a godsend,” says Mitch Golant, a clinical psychologist and officer at the Wellness Community in Santa Monica, a support organization for cancer survivors.

Indeed, 81% of the cancer survivors polled by Working Woman/Amgen said their jobs helped them maintain emotional stability during their battle.

“After a diagnosis with cancer,” says Anne Coscarelli of UCLA’s Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women With Cancer, “people are faced with incredible amounts of loss. They fear their life may not go on. They fear losing their physical appearance. They fear being isolated from others and not being able to talk about their illness. The losses keep stacking up.

“Work defines who they are. So it’s a tremendous psychological hit when that’s taken away.”

If discrimination is perceived, workers with cancer can first explore in-house grievance procedures. But if no resolution is forthcoming, they may wish to consult private attorneys or support organizations, such as the Cancer Legal Resource Center at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles; the California Women’s Law Center’s Breast Cancer Legal Clinic in Los Angeles; the local chapter of the American Cancer Society; or the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship in Silver Spring, Md., which can offer advice, support and referrals regarding workplace-related discrimination issues.

Fortunately, for every workplace horror story, there exists a tale of compassion and kindness: A nurse’s co-workers take turns driving her to chemotherapy treatments, a psychotherapist receives support from her patients during her time of crisis, a Fortune 500 company sets up a home office for a worker too weak to commute to work, colleagues of a newly hired secretary donate their own sick leave to allow her to take 12 days to recover from surgery.

Cancer is no longer a death sentence. Nearly 10 million Americans have survived battles with the disease. And over 70% of these men and women are “cured”--they will enjoy the same life expectancy as people who never had cancer.

“People with cancer are not looking for handouts,” says legal advocate Slavin. “They want nothing more than the opportunity to work and, in some cases, reasonable accommodations so that they can work. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”