Comment: Workers with disabilities will be key to reopening
Published 1:30 am Sunday, May 10, 2020
By Chris Brandt / For The Herald
Many reading this may have lost or are in jeopardy of losing your job. You are scrambling to find resources and understand the assistance that is being offered, trying to figure out if you qualify and standing in virtual lines. You are trying to keep your family whole and support your kids who are not in school and separated from their friends.
Have you found yourself thinking: “Is my job essential? Why isn’t it?” Of course it is! To you it is the most essential job there is. It is the one you have, the one you need, the one that keeps you and your family alive, the one that makes you feel good about yourself; and for many of you it is the place where you feel most welcomed and validated as a contributing human in our world.
I know and love a group of people whose contributions are rarely considered essential. In fact, in the not so distant past, their very lives were considered unessential and a burden on the rest of us. Only in recent decades have laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act and initiatives like the supported-employment movement opened doors to opportunity and a promise of equality.
Unfortunately, sadly, painfully the coronavirus pandemic has shone a bright light on some of the ugliness of whom some consider are not “essential.” AtWork!’s Activist Advocate Ivanova Smith, recently was featured in a National Public Radio report lately. Perhaps you have heard her talk about proposed rationing policies to keep alive those who get very sick from the virus when supplies are not adequate to meet the need. These policies come from a belief that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are less deserving of life support than others. That who they are and what they do is not essential for our society to be whole and well.
Ivanova and I believe and so do many others like us: Only when all of us are recognized as truly equal and essential will our world to be an inclusive, compassionate and thriving world, the kind of world that I want. The kind of world I know most of you want too. Our response to the virus could erode the wins gained in some long-fought battles for social justice, equity and inclusion and make that world we want more elusive for some of us.
It does not have to be that way! Ivanova and others are speaking out and people are hearing, listening, and taking right action. I see a bright future, one where the positive and beautiful things, the innovative things that come from this shared experience prevail. Where new opportunities transform our world for the better.
I am not making light of the sacrifice required or the inevitable pain. I am asking you to share my belief, my hope, and my inspiration and to celebrate with me a newfound essential status for those considered our most vulnerable.
Almost overnight, the jobs that people with disabilities typically have performed (sometimes referred to as food, filth and flowers … and not in a complimentary way) have become some of the most essential (after our first responders and health care workers, of course). Many people with disabilities supported by AtWork! are working in essential businesses including grocery stores, pharmacies, and hardware stores. Dedicated employment consultants are essential too; they provide supports so that employees with disabilities retain their essential jobs.
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the perspective and talents they bring to the workplace will remain and become more essential in our return to the new normal, to a new way of working and living together.
In an economy with full employment and a 1 percent unemployment rate, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities proved their value to business, to the workforce and to the bottom line. In a recovery that could very well begin with 20 percent unemployment or higher, their essentiality is more certain. They occupy a highly essential niche in the new economy where day to day, they carry out essential functions, often in a customized or part-time role, never missing a day’s work, giving their all, bringing renewed teamwork and job satisfaction to their teams.
Businesses that survive and thrive in the new economy will surely benefit from the contributions made by employees that continue to prove their essentialness during these difficult times.
Chris Brandt is the chief executive for AtWork!
