Disabled Workers' Biggest Barrier: Bias
A Cornell study finds many improvements -- and some persistent problems -- since the ADA's 1990 passage

JULY 20, 2000
ADA NEWS

By Pamela Mendels in New York
 
Employers have made significant inroads over the last decade to extend equal opportunity to people with disabilities. But obstacles still bar full inclusion of the disabled in the American workplace. And the most difficult to tear down may be a bias by the nondisabled. So says a new Cornell University study released this month to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act's signing. The landmark law, passed on July 26, 1990, mandated sweeping employment protections for the disabled, including a requirement that employers of 15 or more make "reasonable accommodations" for the disabled in hiring and work.

The Cornell study was based on survey responses of the human-resources staff and/or equal-employment-opportunity representatives of 865 private and 403 federal employers. It found that the vast majority of organizations have made changes to meet the needs of their disabled staff. For example, 93% of government and 82% of private employers reported that they had made their facilities accessible. Some 87% of federal employers and 69% of their private counterparts said they had restructured jobs or adjusted work hours to assist the disabled. And 91% of federal employers (85% in the private sector) responded that they had trained employees in nondiscriminatory hiring and recruitment practices.

"Employers seem to be taking the ADA seriously in terms of recognizing policies and practices to eliminate discrimination. That's very positive news," says Susanne M. Bruyère, the study's author and director of an employment and disability program at Cornell's School of Industrial & Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y.

NO SANCTUARY.  Still, she says, the survey shows a number of rough spots. For one, government and private employers alike believe, in significant numbers, that lack of training and related work experience have hampered their disabled staff. For another, private employers often lag behind federal ones in aiding disabled workers. One particularly striking example: 90% of government employers reported having acquired or altered equipment to assist disabled employees, but only 59% of private employers had.

"One hypothesis is they have had longer to get up to speed on this," explains Bruyère. The federal government was required to extend workplace protections to the disabled 17 years before the ADA by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

That hardly means, however, that the federal workplace is a sanctuary for the disabled. One of the study's more troubling findings is that significant numbers of both organizations reported that "attitudes/stereotypes" had proved a barrier to the employment or advancement of the disabled. In fact, the figures were higher for federal workplaces: 43% to 22% at private employers. The higher figure at federal agencies may, again, be a function of the longer life of disability-rights law in the government workplace, Bruyère speculates. Perhaps tension is higher because more initiatives are under way, she says.

LEGAL TANGLE.  And bias isn't an easy problem to solve. Survey respondents were asked to choose from seven possible problems they might have encountered in meeting the needs of their disabled workers, from adjusting medical questions to changing the performance-management system. The single biggest bloc of both private and federal employers -- about 33% of both groups -- said changing co-worker or supervisor attitudes had proved either "difficult" or "very difficult."

Another obstacle is the complexity of the law, according to the private employers polled. Large groups reported being either "frequently" or "occasionally" uncertain about how to coordinate the ADA with other complex worker-protection statutes, such as those concerning occupational safety or workers' compensation. The most confusion stemmed from the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA): 58% of respondents said they had experienced uncertainty about whether an employee who requests family leave is also covered by the ADA. Fully 68% were perplexed about how to coordinate leave under the ADA and FMLA with other federal mandates and corporate policies.

This finding comes as little surprise to businesses, especially smaller companies without big human-resources staffs dedicated to understanding the minutiae of government regulation. "It's very confusing for small business," says Mary E. Leon, a spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, a Washington (D.C.) advocacy group.

TOUGH TOEHOLD.  James Gashel, governmental affairs director for the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, says the findings generally reflected the experience of the blind in the workplace. The ADA, he says, has been helpful in prodding employers to recognize the disabled and in taking down physical barriers. Still, he says, many blind people encounter difficulty just getting a foot in the door. Indeed, more private and federal employers singled out making "pre-employment" information available to the blind as more of a difficulty than any other obstacle.

And once they're on the job, the disabled still encounter problems ranging from intolerant managers to ignorance about assistive technology. "There may be physical proximity, but actual integration in the workplace -- that is still difficult," Gashel says, adding later: "You can't pass a law that changes people's attitudes, and certainly they won't change in 10 years."

For more information, see BWOL, 7/12/00, Assistive Technology: Surveying the State of the Disabled's Discontent")