Handicapped Workers Find Wider Acceptance

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Hiring the handicapped is not just a question of social policy: According to some employers, it makes good business sense as well.

Robert Ruffner, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, notes that employment opportunities for the handicapped have doubled in the past five years. Ruffner attributes the better job market to an increase in information about the abilities and skills of handicapped workers.

"I think companies are becoming aware of the fact that they get good employees when they hire the handicapped," concurs Larry Cartoon, coordinator of workshop services for Jawonio Workshop, a Rockland County, N.Y.-based training center for handicapped workers.

"When it comes to business," he continues, "businessmen aren't interested in who is doing it, just as long as the job gets done."

Although Jawonio's 240 physically and emotionally handicapped workers are trained in assembly, sub-assembly, packaging, building maintenance, food service, and clerical work, the majority of the labor they do includes menial repetitive tasks.

Jawonio employees do contact work for 67 different companies in the shelter's vicinity. The handicapped have done packaging for firms as large as Westinghouse's Rockland County facility, and assembly work for firms as small as Sure Crop of New York, a oneman company that packages plants such as hanging strawberry-basket kits.

Jim Johansen, who owns and runs Sure Crop, has seasonal employment needs and relies on the handicapped for all his help. "It sounds magnanimous to work with the handicapped," he says, "but the fact is it's good business. You don't have to worry about training or Social Security. And handicapped people do a good job."