Page 13 - ABILITY Magazine - Best Practices Employment

Patricia A. Shiu
of people with disabilities. But I think the numbers show that over the past 40 years, people with disabili- ties have among the highest of unemployment rates, and it’s time for us to get serious about this.
Good-faith efforts haven’t worked. What gets measured gets done. This is not something new in terms of the goals that we’re setting, which of course are aspirational but enforceable—enforceable because we can enforce the actions that are taken or not taken with respect to getting to the goal. These are the sort of things that we’ve done to measure progress with regards to race and gender for many, many years.
We’re opening the doors for federal contractors who, up to this point, have really not taken advantage of all of the skills and experience and expertise that people with disabilities can bring to the workforce.
Hoskins: Are there any indications that some contractors are skirting the existing rules?
Shiu: Yes. There is some evidence of that. When there is fear, when there is ignorance, it makes it very difficult. I’ve represented a lot of people with disabilities, and quite frankly, there are some jobs that not all of us can do, but for the most part, people with disabilities can do the bulk of the jobs that are available, usually with some reasonable accommodation, or even without reasonable accommodation. So the days where people assume that somebody can’t climb a pole because they don’t have a limb, well that’s the Dark Ages.
There are contractors who are committed to doing this, including the Organization on Disability, which is a consortium of very big federal contractors, including Sam’s Club and others. When the regs came out, they actually wrote a press release talking about how sup- portive they were of the goal. So I think when you have contractors who understand the objectives, and who have a commitment to changing the culture, then things can happen.
Hoskins: What type of penalties are in store for contrac- tors who don’t adhere to the rule?
Shiu: There are a number of specific steps that we’re requiring of contractors, including data collection, and recruitment efforts, as well as measuring those efforts, along with retention. And it’s all of those tasks, includ- ing the measurements, that are going to be subject to investigations and audits. So if contractors don’t under- take any of these specific, mandatory steps, they can be subject to violations.
It’s important to look at the goal as something that you want to reach. But even if you’ve reached the goal, that doesn’t mean there isn’t more that could be done. And it doesn’t mean that people who do everything and who don’t reach the goal aren’t successful. But you have got
to make the effort to do it. You’ve got to be committed to it. You’ve got to measure what you’re doing, figure out where you’re falling down, and fix it. Our ultimate sanction is debarment.
But we’re here to provide technical assistance to con- tractors. They don’t have to pay an expensive consultant in order to figure out what they need to do; we have almost 800 employees who are ready to help them. They can call us. We don’t retaliate against people who call us and ask us for advice. We really are very receptive to people who need the guidance, particularly small busi- nesses, small contractors and new businesses. We don’t want them to have to try and understand the regulation by themselves and navigate through it; we’re here to help them succeed.
Johnson: What is the process of a proposed rule being adopted?
Shiu: We actually gave advance notice of the proposed rule because the regulation was so old, and because I didn’t feel like OFCCP had really engaged enough with its stakeholders. We submitted an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking a number of questions, and then we went around the country, literally, and spoke with stakeholders about their thoughts, their ideas
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