In Jim Krancevic’s line of work, there’s always a demand for top-notch employees.
Krancevic is an executive headhunter. Yet he has noticed that in his 15 years in the business, there is always one type of worker conspicuously absent when calls go out for “good employees”-people with disabilities.
This is particularly true in corporate America, said Krancevic, head of Krance Search, a Cleveland-based firm that specializes in finding executive consultants.
And, said Krancevic, the meager hiring of people with disabilities doesn’t seem to be changing much-even with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a law that provides sweeping civil rights protection for the nation’s estimated 43 million people with disabilities.
It explicitly prohibits discrimination in hiring and requires accessibility in public accommodations.
Monday marks the 1-year anniversary of what many consider to be the heart and soul of the legislation: the Title I provision prohibiting employment discrimination. The law now applies to companies with 25 or more employees, though in July 1994 it will be extended to companies with 15 or more.
When the law was adopted, many advocates touted it as the key that would unlock the world of work to the nation’s disabled work force, of which more than 60 percent are estimated to be unemployed or under-employed.
Yet it hasn’t worked out that way, according to many people with disabilities and those who work on their behalf. “We haven’t seen the significant jumps in employment we’d hoped for,” said Audrey McCrimon, director of the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services.
An estimated 1.5 million people with disabilities live in Illinois, McCrimon says, and their unemployment rate mirrors those nationwide. And the rates for minorities with disabilities are even more staggering.
“If you’re a minority and disabled,” McCrimon said, “the unemployment figure is around 90 percent.”
The ADA has not made job-hunting any easier for professional people with disabilities, said Krancevic, who uses a wheelchair.
Krancevic, whose clients include such major firms as Arthur Andersen & Co. and Coopers & Lybrand, said that in his 15 years as a headhunter, including the 11 that he’s run his own business, his physical disability has not been a career barrier. But his experience, Krancevic says, is the exception.
An estimated 3.2 million people with disabilities nationwide are professionals, meaning they have advanced educational degrees or some type of special technical skills.
“The only thing the ADA has helped with is in awareness. People are more aware of people with disabilities,” Krancevic said. “But I think a lot of companies are just paying lip service to this idea of hiring the disabled.”
A big problem, he said, is perception. “I think there still exists an overriding perception that sees the disabled as somehow less than qualified,” Krancevic said. Even those who come armed with degrees and training.
And, he said, when companies do hire the disabled, one must look at where they are employed. “For example,” he said, “you have hamburger chains hiring the disabled, but they’re hiring them as hamburger flippers, not as accountants or data processors.”
There are many who say it’s too soon to see a dramatic turnaround in the number of people with disabilities hired. One reason, they note, is that many employers are still getting familiar with the law.
“What we’ve seen this past year is that most employers have been trying to get their workplaces in compliance with the law,” said Bernice Shendel, executive director of the Human Resources Management Association of Chicago.
“Many companies call and ask us for sample job descriptions or for information on how to make sure that a job application is in compliance with the law,” she said.
For example, an employee must first have been offered a job before being required to submit to a physical exam.
Clarifying these and other workplace related matters are crucial for employers. That’s because what separates this law from others addressing the rights of the disabled is a provision allowing suits against accused employers.
It was this provision that triggered the most opposition to the ADA. Many employers feared the passage of this provision would result in a flood of suits.
Before a complaint can be taken to court it must first go before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a state agency, which will investigate the charge.
Either the commission or the individual can decide to take the issue to court.
In the year since the ADA’s employment provision went on the books, there has not been the tidal wave of suits that critics predicted.
In fact, there have only been two suits that have gone to trial. One, concerning a Chicago-based firm, AIC Securities, resulted in the company being found guilty of wrongfully dismissing an employee who had brain cancer. The company is appealing the matter.
A second suit was filed against a New York health-insurance plan, the Mason Tenders District Council Welfare Fund, for excluding treatment of conditions related to the AIDS virus.
According to the EEOC, from July 26, 1992, to June 30, 1993, a total of 11,550 ADA-related complaints were filed. These accounted for about 15 percent of the total 70,000 workplace complaints filed with the commission during that time.
And, the agency said, the majority of the ADA complaints were filed by those already employed-most of them employees claiming wrongful termination. Only about 12.9 percent the complaints were from job seekers charging they had been denied employment because they were disabled.
There also has been a significant number of workers filing complaints under the law’s “reasonable accommodations” part, which says workplaces must be made accessible so that a qualified disabled person can perform the job.
Disabled-rights advocates say some employers are purposely dragging their feet in complying with the law.
“These employers know the EEOC is backed up when it comes to investigating these charges so they’re purposely delaying until the law forces them to do something,” said Sheila Thomas, disability-rights coordinator at Access Living in Chicago.
But many of the employers say they’re not being obstinate-a year later, they’re still confused. They say the law is too vague and that it will be left up to the courts to define it.
Employer Robert Bonifas has made some changes at his workplace. And, he said, he’s waiting before investing in some others.
Bonifas heads Alarm Detection Systems Inc., a 25-year-old security firm based in Aurora. The firm has 112 employees. Annual sales are around $10 million.
Bonifas said it cost him about $4,000 to install a ramp to make his two-story office building handicapped-accessible and make the building’s doors easier to open.
“What we’ve done so far, we feel we’re in compliance with the law. We’ve made reasonable accommodations so a person with a disability could apply for a job here,” he said, adding that to date no one with a disability has applied.
As ADA moves into its second year, job creation seems to be the new rallying theme.
“There needs to be a continuing effort to bring businesses and the people with disabilities together,” said Joe Dragonette, a Chicago public relations executive who founded Project Access, a non-profit effort that provides information on the ADA via computer.
“You need to have a coordinated source of job referrals for people, and you need job training. That’s not something that has been assembled yet, and you can’t expect it to be assembled in one year,” Dragonette said.
As for professional people who are disabled, Krancevic, the Cleveland-based headhunter, is hoping to make it easier for would-be employers to find them.
Six months ago Krancevic founded the Disabled Professionals Network. The organization is based in Cleveland, but it hopes to have a national reach. Dues are $40 a month and it now has 100 members, Krancevic said. For more information, call 800-942-1923.
