Month: May 2020

People with disabilities, the chronically ill and commuters are among those relieved to be working from home. They are angry that it took the coronavirus crisis to change the concept of what a workplace looks like.

Civil rights lawyer Britney Wilson — like so many others — is working from her home. She is a New York City native and being able to stay put is something she sees as a privilege. Because those who still have to go to work are often at greater risk of infection. Many of them are essential, but low-income workers.

Wilson lives in a quiet residential area in Brooklyn – quite the opposite to where her office is located, in the heart of Manhattan. She joined the “National Center For Law and Economic Justice” in 2018. “I’ve been thinking, did I need to be making that commute every day? The last two months have proven: probably not,” Wilson says.

Due to her cerebral palsy the lawyer commutes to work via the city’s paratransit “Access-a-ride.” It provides shuttle rides for people with disabilities and the elderly. When things go well, the drive to the office takes an hour. However, she often has to wait for the vehicle to arrive, and there might be one or two more passengers needing to be dropped off at completely different destinations.

“I’m saving a ton of time,” said Wilson about working from home. “This crisis has fundamentally changed the way we think about work and the way that work is structured.”

Suddenly, there’s empathy

Even after the stay-at-home orders end, employees would likely work from home more frequently than before, said Diane Hettinger, to avoid long commutes and to be able to better juggle business and private appointments. Hettinger works for Prudential Financial, an insurance and investment company listed as one of the largest firms in the country in the “Fortune 500” ranking.

What people thought of as “normal” was likely going to evolve, Hettinger told DW. “Things are changing. Our senior leaders have already said we’re not going back.”

Five years ago her firm appointed her as the head of an accommodation unit, where she works on providing solutions for individuals who have special needs. For example, she makes sure that videos are subtitled for employees or that all building entrances are accessible.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Hettinger has felt that colleagues who did not use her services before are suddenly requesting help. Many had developed more empathy for what it is like to face a challenge. “Everyone in the organization has a greater sense of openness to what can be done by all people,” said Hettinger and, in future, it would be easier to “grant those requests for individuals”.

Companies running out of arguments

Even if infividual companies do not show more flexibility in future, the changes forced by COVID-19 have set precedents. Attorney Vincent White, who specializes in workplace discrimination, says that “we’ve already proven what we always argue. How can an employer argue that an accommodation for someone’s disability to work from home is not reasonable? That’s exactly the argument every attorney is going to make for the foreseeable future in years to come.”

Apart from seeing new possibilities to defend his clients who are employees, White is also supporting companies in handling challenging situation that are arising while people work from home: What do I do when my employee shows up drunk to the online meeting? What if someone’s wardrobe is inadequate? There might not be any sexual harassment cases at the office, but what about the office chatroom as a potential tool for abuse?

All a matter of mindset

The coronavirus crisis makes everyday life more difficult for those who have no work or have lost it as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. People with disabilities or pre-existing conditions are facing even more challenges, especially when they are dependent on services and medical care that have been put on hold.

The fact that the crisis is forcing companies to rethink what an appropriate place of work is, is the small silver lining. Suddenly, now that the majority of the US population is affected, employers have to demonstrate a flexibility that was unthinkable — even with the Americans with Disabilities Act in place, which is celebrating its 30-year anniversary in July.

“We have proven that we can change our habits. We can accommodate people much more than we thought,” Charles-Edouard Catherine, special assistant to the director of the National Organization on Disability (NOD) told DW.

Catherine, who was born in France, now lives with his partner in New York City. He is blind and often uses touch to navigate. Hygiene precautions have made his everyday life a bit more difficult. The switch to working from home though has been easy. “It really was as simple as taking my laptop home.” The biggest obstacle for people with disabilities or illnesses is not always doing the work, it’s getting a job, he says.

The pandemic may usher in an even more unfair society for people with disabilities, a scenario that must be strongly resisted, writes Frank Conaty, Chair of the Irish Disability Advisory Committee

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 – 12:00 AM
The future is a place of concern for most of us in these extraordinary times. However, for people with disabilities, the future is a very uncertain place.

Many people with disabilities who have underlying health conditions are facing the prospect not just of being locked down for weeks, but, in fear of basic survival, are envisaging a self-isolation period stretching to months and even into 2021.

However, beyond the immediate focus on the challenges thrown up by the current crisis, there is a deeper and longer-term fear that for people with disabilities, Covid-19 will see a turning back of the clock on their participation as equals in our society.

The Disability Advisory Committee of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission recently convened to consider the current response to the virus.

This expert group, the majority of whom are disabled people, articulated clearly their fear of a rolling back of their autonomy, an erosion of their independence and effectively being ‘re-institutionalised’ in their own homes.

They also pointed to the risk of a return to outdated attitudes towards people with disabilities. Specifically, seeing disabled people through a medical prism as patients to be ‘treated’, and a ‘burden’ on society, rather than autonomous individuals who will contribute to Ireland’s recovery. This could be the lingering and lamentable legacy of Covid for disabled people.

As Chair of this Disability Advisory Committee, it is clear from listening to its members that people with disabilities have serious and immediate concerns about how they are to be facilitated in responding to the exceptional COVID measures, and to the potential barriers they may face in accessing necessary health and other supports. Their fears, however, run beyond the immediate threats from the virus.

The history of how people with disabilities have been treated in this country is one that chronicles abuse, neglect, stigma, and inequality. In recent times, positive gains have been made to move away from this past.

These gains have been waymarked by important events such as the landmark Report of the Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities in Ireland (1996), the enactment – however flawed and incomplete – of the Disability Act 2005 and subsequent additional legislative initiatives.

These culminated in Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2018, albeit as the very last EU State to do so, and with significant and continuing opt-outs.

While material gaps and shortcomings in Ireland’s approach to supporting people with disabilities remain, and in society’s treatment of their fellow citizens, we have, nevertheless, made progress in the move from an old charitable, medical model of support for people with disabilities, towards a more holistic rights-based perspective, supporting people to live inclusive, independent lives.

As a society, every one of us is having to live with exceptional disruption to our own normality: to work, to education, to elective medical treatment, to exercise, to our social lives, even to the right to move around freely.

However, in having to accept ‘temporary’ roll backs of how they are facilitated in accessing and expressing their rights in a time of COVID, people with disabilities are pointing to the vulnerability of the gains they fought hard to win.

Roll backs that include being asked to be ‘dependent’ once again for basic living requirements. Roll backs that include being excluded from important public health information and announcements, because they are not in an accessible format.

Roll backs that include having their access to vital personal assistants curtailed. Roll backs that include having their needs bundled in with overall health services.

But what role does the health service have in getting a student back to university, or an employee back into their workplace, or an artist back into their studio or an athlete back training?

People with disabilities are often described as ‘vulnerable’. Intrinsically they are not, but are often rendered so by systems vulnerable to retrenchment, neglect, or erosion.

This crisis has rapidly revealed just how vulnerable the gains, and the systems and supports which underpin the autonomy and independence of people with disabilities, still are. At significant risk are people with disabilities, and others, in congregated settings who do not have the capacity to live on their own or advocate for themselves.

These are exceptional times. As a democracy, the Irish people have agreed that we need exceptional measures. But we all expect and will demand the return of our personal liberties, and to hold once again those small but precious freedoms we miss so much at the moment.

People with disabilities also expect that their personal Covid sacrifices will see them returned to a society which sees them as equal participants, playing their part in Ireland’s recovery, and as valued drivers of our future creativity and success as a nation. This is not something we owe. It is not a favour.

Participation and human dignity is their right. If we are all in this together, it is essential that we all come out of it the same way.

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Dr. Frank Conaty, Commission Member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and Chair of the Disability Advisory Committee

This article originally appeared in the Irish Examiner.

NOD is proud to partner with the companies honored by DiversityInc for their leadership in workplace diversity. Many have something in common — they also are leaders in disability inclusion.

DiversityInc recognized five of NOD’s corporate partners on its Top Companies for Disability ranking: Northrop Grumman (2), Hilton (4), Eli Lilly (6), KeyBank (10), and General Motors (15).

Additionally, NOD Corporate Leadership Council members earned twenty of the coveted spots on the Top 50 Companies for Diversity ranking: Marriott (1), Hilton (2), Eli Lilly and Company (3), ADP (4), Abbott (8), Toyota Motor North America (10), KPMG (12), Target (13), BASF (14), Northrop Grumman (15), Cox Communications (17), The Hershey Company (21), Boeing (27), Exelon (29), General Motors (30), The Kellogg Company (34), KeyBank (35), Colgate-Palmolive (36), HSBC (48), and Capitol One (50).

NOD salutes all of the winners for their commitment to diversity and inclusion!

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is a 2020 American documentary film, about a groundbreaking summer camp which galvanizes a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement toward greater equality. The film features Larry Allison, Judith Heumann, James LeBrecht, Denise Sherer Jacobson, and Stephen Hofmann.

April 30, 2020 | Blog by Charles Catherine, Special Assistant, NOD

When I started working for the National Organization on Disability in 2018, one of my first assignments was to join a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Labor to discuss the section 14(c)  of the Fair Labor Standards Act (a provision that allows companies under certain conditions to pay people with disabilities sub-minimum wage). I was told Judith Heumann would attend the meeting. I’ll admit,  I knew little about her. I had seen a great Drunk History episode about her life, and I knew in 1977 she led a 25-day sit-in demanding the signing of regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the first disability civil rights law to be enacted in the United States. (It prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in programs that receive federal support). At that meeting, I could tell just by listening to Judy that she not only has had incredible experiences, but she also is empathetic. I couldn’t see her, but I felt that she was looking at me as someone who had been there before, who could relate to my experiences and understood me.

When I heard Barack and Michelle Obama had produced a documentary on the birth of the disability rights movement, that this documentary would feature Judy, and that it would come out for the 30th anniversary of the ADA, I was anxious to find out how they pulled everything from that incredible time, including Judy’s role, together.

Here are eight lessons I took away after watching Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution:

1. Language is key
   The title of this documentary, “Crip Camp” refers to Camp Jened, a summer retreat in the Catskills where, from 1951 to 1977, young people with disabilities first experienced the joys of community. Judy was a counselor there. No one actually calls the place “Crip Camp,” but it is a great way to reclaim the term crippled that was often used in mainstream media then, and it sets the tone for a documentary that is not overly concerned with making anyone, abled or disabled, feel comfortable.
2. I’m not alone
   When Judy was a child, her public school refused to allow her to attend class, calling her a “fire hazard”. Apparently in America, if one has polio and uses a wheelchair, one can become president, but can’t go to school. At my small level, fighting for accessibility means: having the energy to write to a company letting them know their website isn’t accessible, having the confidence to ask for the right accommodations at work, or not being discouraged when I am told I can’t register for a swim race because it would be “too dangerous” for a blind athlete to swim in the East River. Learning more about Judy’s life helped me overcome those challenges, made me realize that I wasn’t alone.
3. “There is no power greater for change than a community discovering what it cares about,” wrote author Margaret Wheatley.
   My favorite moment of the documentary comes  when we watch campers candidly share their hardships in group conversations. It is like watching the birth of a community. They talk about their lack of privacy, their overprotective parents, the indifference of strangers, all things that I can relate to, 50 years later. A lovely couple, Neil and Denise Jacobson,  who both have cerebral palsy, met at this camp and experienced firsthand a lot of ableism, even from their own family. Neil confessed that when his parents learned that he was engaged to Denise, they told him: “We understand why you’d want to marry someone with cerebral palsy, but couldn’t you try to marry someone who has polio instead?” (In their mind, people with polio were considered at a higher level of function than people with cerebral palsy)
4. Suffering can turn into a creative force
   Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation, either to react with bitterness, or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” Thanks to Judy and to all her fellow activists, the signing of Section 504 in 1977, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 have changed a lot of norms, this progress was fueled by many years of suffering and exclusion.
5. “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” Elbert Hubbard, writer and artist
   Unsurprisingly, despite that meeting with the Secretary of Labor in 2018, 14(c) is still in vigor today in America; it remains legal for companies to pay people with disabilities subminimum wages. But thanks to Judy and her calm demeanor, that day I realized you may never know what results come from your action, but if you do nothing, there will be no result.
6. Disability is a form of diversity
   “Crip Camp” repeatedly links the struggles of the disabled to other fights for civil rights. It begins with one of the counselors, Lionel Je’ Woodyard, an African-American from Mobile, Alabama, who remembers seeing similarities in the treatment of blacks in the South and the shunning of the disabled. Later, we see the Black Panthers bringing hot meals to keep the protesters fed during the 504 sit-in in San Francisco. HolLynn D’Lil, a journalist who became a paraplegic after a road accident, even confesses that the protest  taught her that disabled rights were rights for everyone.
7. A coherent organizing model is essential for effective work
   When we watch in the documentary disabled demonstrators famously dragging themselves up the steps of the U.S. Capitol building to bring about ramps, curb cuts and other essential accessibility provisions, we watch a community that is not just determined but also organized. Although people with disabilities constitute one of the largest minorities in the United States, and even if this is a minority that we each could join at any time, to this day, the disability population is not deemed by many economic and political forces to have much clout. The history of this movement is still very much being written, and it is always good to remember that as writer and anthropologist Margaret Mead famously put it “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
8. We need to keep this energy alive
   The documentary ends with former camper Jim LeBrecht and others returning to the site of Camp Jened, which closed in 1977 for financial reasons. Denise Jacobson has this great quote: “I almost want to get out of my wheelchair and kiss the fucking dirt.For Denise and her friends, everything started there, and it is up to us to keep this energy alive. The National Organization on Disability will honor Judy Heumann at its annual event, the Leading Disability Employers Dinner in September. We will have a chance to celebrate a role model, but also a chance to remind ourselves that we still have a lot of work ahead of us, that together, we are stronger than we think. It is deeply worrying that, amid an unprecedented crisis right now, we see many cases where the specific needs of the disability community are being overlooked. As we design systems for the future, it is important we do not repeat the wrongs of the past.

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Charles Edouard Catherine joined the National Organization on Disability in 2018 as the special assistant to the president, Carol Glazer. With a background in Global Health, he served for several years as the executive director of the Surgeons of Hope Foundation. He successfully led the expansion of the organization from operating a solo program in Nicaragua to several ongoing, congruent programs throughout Latin America. A 2012 graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux, France, Charles holds a Master’s degrees in International Relations. Charles is also a classical pianist of 25 years, a marathoner, and an elite triathlete.