CELEX: 51986PC0006
Language: en
Date: 1986-01-16
Title: PROPOSAL FOR A COUNCIL REGULATION ( EEC ) ESTABLISHING FOR 1986 CERTAIN MEASURES FOR THE CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF FISHERY RESOURCES APPLICABLE TO VESSELS FLYING THE JAPANESE FLAG IN WATERS FALLING UNDER THE SOVEREIGNTY OR JURISDICTION OF PORTUGAL

No C I 36/6                               Official Journal of the European Communities                                   4.6.86
                                                                   II
                                                           (Preparatory Acts)
                                                     COMMISSION
                Council Recommendation on the employment of disabled people in the European Community
                                                           COM (86) 9 final
                                  (Submitted by the Commission to the Council on 29 January 1986)
                                                            (86/C 136/06)
 THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                              Whereas disabled people have the same right as all other
                                                                       workers to equal opportunity in training and
 Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European                  employment;
 Economic Community,
                                                                       Whereas, in a period of economic crisis, action at
                                                                        European and Community levels should be not only
 Having regard         to   the     draft  submitted    by   the
                                                                       continued but also intensified in order to promote the
 Commission,
                                                                        achievement of equal opportunity in practice by means
                                                                        of positive and coherent policies;
 Having regard to the opinion of the European Par-
 liament,                                                              Whereas these policies should take account of the
                                                                       aspirations of disabled people for a fully active and
 Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and                      independent life;
 Social Committee,
                                                                       Whereas the European Parliament, in its resolution of 11
                                                                       March 1981 (4), has stressed the need to promote at
Whereas the Council resolution of 21 January 1974 (')
                                                                       Community level the economic, social and vocational
 concerning a social action programme provides, inter
                                                                       integration of disabled people,
 alia, for the implementation of a programme for the
vocational and social integration of handicapped
persons;                                                               RECOMMENDS TO MEMBER STATES:
Whereas the Council resolution of 27 June 1974 (2)                      1. To take all appropriate measures to promote fair
established an initial action programme to promote the                     opportunities for disabled people in the field of
vocational rehabilitation of handicapped persons;                          employment and vocational training, including initial
                                                                           training and employment as well as resettlement after
                                                                           rehabilitation.
Whereas the resolution of the Council and Rep-
resentatives of the Governments of the Member States of                    This principle of fair opportunity should be applied in
21 December 1981 (3) concerning the social integration-                    respect of
of disabled people invites Member States to 'ensure that
handicapped people do not shoulder an unfair burden of                     (a) Access to employment and vocational training,
the effects, on both employment and resources, of                               including services of guidance, placement and
economic difficulties', and to 'promote measures to                             follow-up;
prepare handicapped people for an active life', but does
not provide for a concerted or concentrated Community                      (b) Retention in that employment or training, and
effort in this regard;                                                          protection from unfair dismissal;
                                                                           (c) Opportunities for promotion.
Whereas, for the purpose of this recommendation,
'disabled people' includes all people with disabilities
which result from physical, mental or psychological                    2. To this end, to establish and implement coherent,
impairments;                                                               comprehensive and positive policies for the vocational
                                                                           training and employment of disabled people, which
                                                                           should take account of measures and developments
                                                                           elsewhere in the Community.
(*) O J N o C 13, 12. 2.1974, p. 1.
(2) OJ No C 80, 9. 7. 1974, p. 30.
(J) OJ No C 347, 31. 12. 1981, p. 1.                                   (4) OJ No C 77, 6. 4. 1981, p. 27.
 ---pagebreak--- 4.6. 86                                   Official Journal of the European Communities                               No C 136/7
   These policies should provide in particular for:                          (ii) The adoption in each Member State of a
                                                                                   code of good practice on the employment of
   (a) Elimination of negative discrimination by:                                  disabled     people,     based   upon     this
          (i) Revision of laws, regulations, administrative                        recommendation and the contents of the
              provisions, and invalidation or amendment of                         model code of positive action attached to this
              provisions in collective agreements, which are                       recommendation. The Code should be
              contrary to the principle of fair opportunity                        disseminated as widely as possible and should
              for disabled people. In particular, rules on                         be applied in both the public and private
              unfair dismissal should contain specific                             sectors.
              provision for protection from dismissal on                     (iii) Provision requiring every public and private
              grounds of disability however or whenever                            employer to whom point (i) above applies to
              acquired.                                                            adopt a policy for the employment of
        (ii) Ensuring that there are no exceptions to the                          disabled people in accordance with the code
              principle of equal access to training or                             of good practice. Member States should
              employment other than those justified on the                         establish the means for publishing these
              ground of a specific incompatibility, if                             policies and the annual progress made in
              necessary confirmed by medical opinion,                              implementation of them, according to already
              between a particular activity forming part of                        existing procedures for disseminating infor-
              a job or course of training and a particular                         mation in the social field.
              disability; and that any such exception is                     (iv) Provision     requiring     the employer     to
              reviewed periodically in order to establish                          cooperate with rehabilitation services in the
              whether it continues to be justified.                                resettlement, with the same employer as far
        (iii) Ensuring that individuals who consider that                          as possible, of any employee who becomes
              the principle of fair opportunity has not been                       disabled, whether or not as a result of an
              applied to them can bring that matter before                         accident at work or of working conditions.
              the courts after, if appropriate, recourse to
              other competent bodies.                                3. To report to the Commission on the measures they
        (iv) Ensuring that any tests required for access to,            have taken to implement this recommendation with a
              or validation of, vocational training courses             view to enabling the Commission to present the report
              are conducted in such a way that candidates               referred to below.
              with disabilities are not thereby disad-
              vantaged.
                                                                     AND INVITES THE COMMISSION:
   (b) Positive action for disabled people, including:
          (i) Bearing in mind differences in the character           1. To establish and operate a system for the exchange of
              of various enterprises and in environmental               information and experience on the rehabilitation and
              circumstances,     the   fixing    of    realistic        employment of disabled people between national
              percentage targets for the employment of                  authorities and other designated agencies.
              disabled people by public or private
              employers having more than 20 employees.               2. To report to the Council on the implementation of
              Measures should be adopted for making                     this recommendation within three years of its
              these targets public and enforcing them.                  adoption.
                MODEL CODE OF POSITIVE ACTION TO PROMOTE THE VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND
                                             EMPLOYMENT OF DISABLED PEOPLE
 1. Job creation                                                         cooperatives or of smaller, medium-sized enterprises,
                                                                          etc.
    Measures should ensure that disabled people are
    given a full and fair opportunity to benefit from                    New employment opportunities for disabled people
    concerted job creation projects, such as regional                    should be created by means of national initiatives
    development         programmes,      local    employment             both in the new technology sector itself and in the
    initiatives, actions to promote the setting up of                    use of new technologies as aids to make employment
 ---pagebreak--- No C 136/8                              Official Journal of the European Communities                                    4.6.86
    possible in other fields. Projects to enable disabled               Trade Unions are to be encouraged to give any
    people to take on telework are to be promoted and                   necessary support to disabled workers and to ensure
    supported.                                                          that their interests are properly catered for in rep-
                                                                        resentative structures.
    Equally, projects are to be promoted and supported              4. Sheltered employment
    which train and prepare disabled people to create
                                                                       The situation in each Member State should be
    their own business, or which find new employment
                                                                        reviewed in regard to sheltered employment and
    opportunities for them in the media or in services on
                                                                        sheltered occupation, and plans drawn up for the
    behalf of other disabled people.
                                                                        future of this sector. On the quantitative side, plans
                                                                        should assess future demand and the need to develop
                                                                        or reduce such provision. On the qualitative side, the
    Other sectors are to be identified (such as tertiary               review should take into consideration the following
    services, including tourism and catering; intensive                 approaches:
    agriculture or horticulture, forestry, etc.), which
    both have a good future and are suitable for people                — improving, the quality of less successful
    with various disabilities, and schemes implemented                      workshops or centres so that they approximate to
    for creating new jobs for disabled people in these                      the best,
    fields.
                                                                       — introducing new forms of activity (for example,
                                                                            in the computer sector) which are both more
                                                                            interesting and commercially more successful,
   Action should be undertaken at national level to
    ensure that new telephone systems are adaptable to                 — increasing the amount          of  genuine    training
    the needs of blind operators. Representatives of                        available in workshops,
    disabled people are to be consulted as to other
   specific risks to employment resulting from new                     — developing the transitional role of workshops,
   technological developments, and appropriate action                       i. e. their function as assessment and personal
   taken. Special national plans are to be drawn up for                     development centres coming between basic
   the re-employment of mentally handicapped workers                        education or a period of unemployment and
   who lose their jobs because of changes in the                            entry to the open labour market,
   character of the employment market. More oppor-
   tunities will be created for part-time employment for               — reducing segregation by developing sheltered
   disabled workers.                                                        posts or groups within normal enterprises, or
                                                                            mixed cooperatives.
                                                                    5. Social security systems
2. Incentives to employers
                                                                       Measures are to be implemented to ensure that
                                                                       disabled workers who lose their jobs or who cannot
                                                                       find employment after vocational rehabilitation do
   Funds from public sources are to be made available
                                                                       not find themselves thereafter, simply because of
   to cover or contribute to the special costs to an
                                                                       their disability, financially worse off than other
   employer of taking on a disabled worker. The
                                                                       workers in similar circumstances.
   eligible expenditures should include adaptations to
   machinery or equipment, provision of access facilities              Measures are also to be taken to ensure that benefit
   and additional staff costs, and the grants should                   systems do not act as disincentives to part-time
   apply both when a worker is re-employed after                       employment, to trial periods of employment or to
   incurring a disability and for new recruitments. In                 the gradual take up of a job or return to it,
   the latter case, a contribution should also be made                 whenever any of these patterns is desirable from the
   from public funds to the worker's salary over a given               disabled worker's and employer's point of view.
   period of induction training.
                                                                    6. Transition, vocational rehabilitation and vocational
                                                                       training
3. Placement and support in the work place
                                                                       A high priority should be given to improving the
                                                                       availability and quality of vocational preparation and
                                                                       training for disabled people, with particular regard
   In all regions placement services with an explicit                  to these factors:
   responsibility to help suitably trained disabled people
   to find a job should be set up, and the necessary                   — giving equal consideration to the needs of
   training    programmes       for   placement       officers             workers who incur disability through accident or
   implemented. These services should also be                              disease, and to young people whose disability is
   responsible for following and supporting the disabled                   congenital or was incurred in childhood or
   person in the job, at least for an initial period.                      adolescence,
 ---pagebreak---   4. 6. 86                                 Official Journal o;    European Communities                               No C 136/9
       — adapting the content of the training courses                  8. The supporting environment
           available to match more realistically the oppor-
           tunities in the labour market,                              Measures are to be taken to ensure that disabled
                                                                       people live in an environment which makes it
       — ensuring that training establishments maintain                possible for them to benefit from further education
           direct links with local representatives of the              and training, and to make their full contribution to
           social partners,                                            the economy. Existing legislation is to be effectively
                                                                       implemented and where necessary new legislation
                                                                       introduced to promote suitable housing (wherever
       — improving training methods,         in particular by          possible integrated in the open community),
           developing the use of new           technologies as         adequate transport to places of training and work
           training aids, by introducing     modular training          and access to and within the workplace, especially in
           and, where appropriate, distant   learning facilities,      the office sector.
       — encouraging experimentation in course structure
           and building design so as to facilitate the coordi-      9. Consultation, coordination and participation
           nation of theoretical and practical training,
                                                                       National, regional and local authorities should
       — eliminating barriers, by reducing entrance                    review their systems of consultation, coordination
           requirements, relaxing age-limit regulations,               and participation including in this review the public
           allowing take-up of courses whenever desired                services and agencies, the voluntary organizations,
           during the year ('staggered' entry), and                    independent professionals, the social partners and
           accelerating official recognition of new courses,           the media as well as disabled people and their
                                                                       families. Particular priority should be given to the
                                                                       active involvement of disabled people, whether in a
       — encouraging disabled trainees to take a more
                                                                       representative or personal capacity, in the taking and
           active part in planning their own training
                                                                       implementation of decisions concerning them.
           programmes,
       — enabling disabled trainees to enrol in integrated         10. Information and advice
           training courses in normal establishments
           wherever possible and desirable,                            For the benefit of disabled people, their families and
                                                                       the    professionals   (whether     case-workers    or
       — guaranteeing continuity throughout the transition             administrators) concerned, a system of information
           or rehabilitation process by promoting inter-               and advice should be developed. This system should
           professional cooperation and the creation of                cover technical aids and other questions of
           multidisciplinary teams.                                    importance to disabled people; it could consist of
                                                                       specialized centres, or of services developed in
                                                                       already existing centres with wider functions; and it
                                                                       should be extended below the national level to
7. Assessment and guidance
                                                                       regional and local levels over time as resources
                                                                       permit.
   In all regions provision is to be made of effective
   educational and vocational guidance services, with a
                                                                       Coordinated action is also to be undertaken to
   clear responsibility to meet the needs of disabled
                                                                       inform and advise politicians, the social partners and
   people. Where this need is met by a general, rather
                                                                       the general public about the capacities and the needs
   than specialized, guidance service, measures are to
                                                                       of disabled people. In particular, video programmes
   be taken to ensure that staff are trained so as to
                                                                       on disability problems could be made widely
   understand and deal with the special needs of people
                                                                       available through appropriate channels such as
   with disabilities.
                                                                       interest groups and the social partners' training
                                                                       systems.
   Studies are to be undertaken to identify the most
   effective assessment methods, and these methods
   introduced as widely as possible. Priority is to be             11. Research
   given to the principles that the disabled person
   himself (and, where appropriate, his family) should                 Social research in this field should be encouraged
   participate actively in assessment, and that every                  and coordinated both in order to analyse needs and
   client should be encouraged to opt for the best level               possibilities, and to evaluate the effectiveness of
   of training and highest vocational goal of which he                 measures undertaken. National data bases of all such
   is capable.                                                         research should be established.
 ---pagebreak--- N o C 136/10                                  Official Journal of the European Communities                                 4.6.86
                                                                      ANNEX
            Analyses of the situation a n d measures concerning the employment of disabled people in the
                                                            European Community
             'The yearning for work         is linked   to human nature itself and aims well beyond    the satisfaction of
                                                           merely material     needs''(')
                                        I. I N T R O D U C T I O N : T H E BASIS OF T H E ANALYSIS
              1. The Commission has based this analysis in the first place on four studies (2) which were undertaken
                  between 1982 and 1983 and which explored the problems from different points of view — statistical,
                  psychological, juridical, sociological and ergonomic. In addition, the Community network of rehabil-
                  itation centres formed three working parties which reported in 1983 on the employment and vocational
                  training of disabled people, and the European associations of and for disabled people with which the
                  Commission is in regular contact were invited to submit data or position papers on the issue. In this
                  way the Commission has been able to draw on the knowledge and opinion of practitioners and
                  consumers as well as reseachers.
              2. The Commission has moreover been made aware of the special relevance to the employment of the
                  disabled of vocational rehabilitation and training. With this in mind the Commission prepared a
                  discussion paper for the Advisory Committee on Vocational Training (3) which was discussed at the
                  Committee's meeting in September 1983. As a result of this discussion, valuable notes of comment were
                  submitted by a number of members of the Committee, and these have been taken into consideration in
                  those sections of this Communication which deal with vocational training.
              3. At the same time the Commission has been able to follow closely the work of the international organi-
                  zations, which, inspired by the United Nations Decade of follow-up to the International Year of 1981
                  as well as by the common sense of urgency in face of the critical problems to be faced, have been
                  exceptionally active in the field of the rehabilitation and employment of people with disabilities. Of
                  special importance has been the adoption by the International Labour Organization in 1983 of a
                  convention and recommendation on the rehabilitation and employment of disabled persons. The
                  positive approach as well as the solidarity of the Community countries on a number of important issues
                  was a striking feature of the preparation of these documents. The Council of Europe (partial
                  agreement in the social and public health field) is also making a double contribution of exceptional
                  value in the systematic restructuring of its compendium of information on national legislation
                  concerning the rehabilitation and employment of the disabled, and in the updating and collation of all
                  its past resolutions to form a new comprehensive resolution embodying a coherent policy for the
                  rehabilitation of disabled persons. Equally valuable and complementary is the Handicapped Adolescent
                  Programme of the OECD (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation), which has now moved
                  on from the theme of in-school integration to that of transition from school to working life; here the
                  stress is on the encouragement, description and evaluation of innovatory approaches and projects, and
                  on the analysis of the implication of the outcomes of these for policy. The interdependence between all
                  this well-directed international activity and that of the European Community greatly increases the
                  support afforded to the efforts of all the Member States concerned.
            (') From 'Assessing Needs; Report of a Survey carried out in Athens in 1984', a paper presented by the
                 Greek Spastics Society to a Seminar supported by the Commission and organized by the International
                 Cerebral Palsy Society in Cambridge, April 1984.
            (2) The four studies are:
                 'The Handicapped and their employment', Guy Mangin (EUROSTAT, 1983),
                 'A functional assessment of disabled workers in the light of task demands of new micro-electronic
                 devices', Robert Feeney, University of Loughburough, 1982,
                 'Overiew: Disability and employment', Mary Croxen, Open University, 1982,
                 'The economic integration of the disabled: an analysis of measures and trends in Member States',
                 Eliane Vogel Polski and others, Free University Brussels, 1983.
            (3) Commission paper 'The vocational training of disabled people in the European Community', June 1983.
 ---pagebreak--- 4 . 6 . 86                                Official J o u r n a l of the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t i e s             N o C 136/11
             4. In January 1984 the Commission invited Professor Albeda, dean of the faculty of economics in the
                University of Limburg, Maastricht, to prepare a synthesis report (') which would take into account the
                studies and other contributions already received and would form the basis of a multi-representative
                workshop which the Commission organized in Brussels in March 1984. Finally, the employment theme
                was the main item on the agenda of two meetings (April and June 1984) of the Commission's Liaison
                Group on Disability, consisting of representatives of the ministries concerned in all the Member States.
                The Liaison Group has also been an important source of documentation concerning recent
                developments in Member States.
                                                           II. T H E SITUATION
           A. General positive factors concerning disability
             5. Where so many difficult problems exist, a completely unbalanced picture would result if an account
                were not first given of the many highly significant positive features in the situation. While medical
                advances can increase the number of actual disabilities by improving the rates of survival at birth, after
                accident or in old age, against this must of course be set not only the cure of many previously
                incurable impairments but also the reduction of disabilities resulting from impairments which
                themselves remain uncured. At the same time considerable advances have been made in the theory and
                practice of pedagogy, opening up new learning possibilities for mentally retarded as well as physically
                disabled people at all levels of education and training. In some cases this effect is heightened by the
                positive consequences of the 'mainstreaming' tendency to integrate disabled children or young people
                into ordinary schools or colleges.
             6. Equally dramatic headway has been made in the reduction or even elimination of handicaps resulting
                from disabilities however severe. The range and quality of technical aids, and the availability of infor-
                mation about them, are in general advancing all the time, and there is no form of disability whose
                resulting handicaps cannot be reduced in one way or another by their means; the present contribution,
                let alone the future potential, of aids using new informatic or telematic technologies is especially
                important. The benefits offered extend over every phase and almost every aspect of life — basic
                functioning, education, training, employment, leisure, communication, independent living. Increasingly
                it is no exaggeration to say that the blind can read, the deaf can use the telephone, the paralysed can
                move with considerable freedom, the mentally retarded can learn. With the aid of a computer, even a
                person so severely paralysed from birth that he can only nod his head or blow can learn to
                communicate and control his environment.
             7. The combination of technical advances with changing attitudes and a developing sense of public
                responsibility has brought a number of wider ranging benefits. A tetraplegic person may be able to
                drive a car which has been specially adapted for him; in a number of cities public transport systems
                have been adapted or door-to-door transport provisions established (2). There have been many imagi-
                native and flexible housing schemes which enable independent living without loss of the necessary
                professional support and without the creation of ghettoes (3). Mobility in the street has been improved
                by the provision in some cities of ramps for wheel-chair users or of tactile or audible aids for blind
                pedestrians. Much has also been done to make public buildings — offices, hotels, shops, educational
                estabishments, cultural and leisure facilities — physically accessible, and to adapt work places to the
                needs of disabled employees. It is true that in all these areas the record of achievement throughout the
                Community is extremely variable, but the achievements are real and a basis of good practice has been
                founded.
             8. It is important also not to underestimate the efforts which have been made by Member States to set up
                or support coordinating bodies at national level. In some cases these may include in their
                responsibilities a part of the actual implementation of policy and provision of services; in others the
                stress is on consultation and information roles. The French 'Comite National de Liaison pour la
           O 'Disabled people and their employment', by Will Albeda, in collaboration with the European Centre for
               Work and Society, Maastricht.
           (2) See the Commission's Study 'Transport for the Disabled: Door-to-door Transport Systems', Erica
               Research Institute, November 1982.
           (5) See especially the Commission's Communication COM(80) 491 of September 1980, reporting the
               housing innovations supported by the Community's Programme of Pilot Projects for the Housing of
               Disabled People.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 136/12                                Official Journal of the European Communities                                     4.6.86
                Readaptation des Handicapes' is a good example of such national provision; so also are the 'Bundes-
                arbeitsgemeinschaft fur Rehabilitation' in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands Council
                for the Disabled 'Stichting Nederlandse Gehandicaptenraad', the National Rehabilitation Board in
                Ireland, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation in the United Kingdom. A number of
                these bodies provide the national secretariats of rehabilitation international and so are playing an active
                part in the reciprocal exchange of data and ideas at world level; organized also on the European plane,
                the secretariats in the Community countries have regular discussions with the Commission on all the
                main social issues of disability, thus ensuring a Community demension to their work.
             9. Much of this a practical achievement has resulted from (and, in its turn, further encouraged) a change
                of attitudes — among employers, for example, trade union officials, administrators and professionals;
                to some extent also among the general public. In promoting this change, there is no doubt that the
                International Year of Disabled People (1981) has been a major factor. At times, indeed, it is hard not
                to be impressed rather by the darker side: the persistence of apathy, ignorance and ill-disguised fear
                towards many forms of disability can be a depressing phenomenon. Yet, on the positive side, there is a
                growing concern, for example, to breakdown the barriers which have traditionally existed between the
                practitioners of different professions, and between the professionals and either administrators or, even
                more important, their clients ('). In some countries at least, magazine programmes or documentary
                films broadcast on radio or television are having an important impact. There is a widespread and
                increasingly effective will to eliminate the debilitating effect of an undue paternalism which has charac-
                terized much well-intentioned activity in the past. Though reservations and prejudices persist, it is
                encouraging that many employers have completely changed their attitudes when they have learned in
                practice what a disabled worker has to offer. Indeed there is a mass of evidence from every walk of live
                and every level of society that this is a world where everything can change once the ice is broken.
            10. Not rapidly, at least in Europe, yet perceptibly and increasingly, disabled people themselves are
                responding to this complex of predicament and opportunity. Individuals have always of course done
                this; increasingly it is realised that, apart from the basic few, organization and solidarity are needed if
                the challenge is to be met. In all Community countries the associations of parents and families of
                disabled people, and of disabled people themselves, are more or less influential, and the trend is for
                their influence to grow; at European level it is also being felt, and the Commission is encouraging this
                development. The truth is that the good-will of the non-disabled is essential, but it is not enough; it
                cannot alone be relied upon to produce effective results in hard times. Disabled people need therefore
                the support of well-directed self-advocacy too. This will nowhere be more effective than when linked
                to active self-help systems and activities, such as the Independent Living Movement which is now
                begining to take root in the Community at points as far apart as Derbyshire and Munich.
            11. In summary, the positive factors can be seen as a combination of somewhat slow and sporadic but
                distinct progress as far as concerns general environmental questions, supporting systems, the attitudes
                of others towards disabled people, and the self-image and aspiration of disabled people themselves,
                with very much more rapid advances in the scientific and technological field. What matters for the
                present purpose is that this combination has changed and will continue to change the threshold of
                employability. The reality now is that to speak of unemployability, in an absolute sense, is no longer
                possible; the most one can do, in the negative direction, is to confess that in some situations one
                cannot imagine how a certain person may become ready to be employed in the foreseeable future —
                and even then, quite often and probably more and more frequently, one will be proved wrong.
           B. General problems of disability
            12. Against these substantial positive factors must be set a number of general problems which act as
                barriers to the achievement of a full and satisfactory life by many disabled people, and which need to
                be presented before considering problems which are specific to employment. Some of these derive from
                the nature of disability itself, others are centred in the response which society makes to disability.
           (') See the recent (1983) Commission's studies on 'Inter-Professional Co-operation' by Professor Boris
               Ford and 'The role of the voluntary bodies' by V. Koditz, both focussing on the transition needs of
               young disabled people.
 ---pagebreak--- 4.6.86                                 Official J o u r n a l of the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t i e s              N o C 136/13
        13. One group of problems concerns the very diversity of disabilities. On the side of disabled people
            themselves, this factor has acted as an understandable break in the development of a sense of
            comprehensive solidarity, and therefore has in practice tended to impede the formation of effectively
            powerful structures of self-help and advocacy. For administrators and providers the diversity also
            constitutes an intractable difficulty: they are perpetually either trying to find a narrow path between
            overspecialization and overgeneralization in their definition of the problems to be confronted, or else
            they are having to make a series of discrete decisions to take comparatively narrow or broad ap-
            proaches to specific situations or needs.
        14. Disability also entails, both for the disabled person and for the policy maker or service provider, the
            dilemma of stigma. In order both to plan services and to deliver them, the provider must know what
            and where the needs are, and be able to make at least some assessment of trends. So he needs to
            identify disabled people, collect detailed information about them, perhaps for certain purposes invite or
            require them to register themselves as disabled. The pursuit even of an active policy of integration
            depends on first identifying and so distinguishing those who are to be integrated. And for the disabled
            person himself the dilemma is clear enough: to qualify for a benefit, he must accept a categorization
            which may diminish his selfimage or damage the way others perceive him. For him, too, therefore, the
            public route to integration may appear both irksome and overexposed.
        15. Negative factors which can be seen in the response of society to disabled people are of three kinds:
            those which are manifested in legislation, in the provision of services, and in the reactions of the general
            public. As to legislation, although there are many useful measures in force in the Community countries,
            the general picture is unsatisfactory for four reasons. The basis of past legislation naturally reflects the
            vision of the time, a vision which may now appear limited or distorted; nor have modifications kept up
            with changes in the situation or in attitudes. Legislation has also often been piecemeal, so that the
            various elements do not cohere. Third, implementation is not always effective, and monitoring often
            inadequate. The detrimental effect of these inadequacies is, finally, aggravated by economic recession.
       16. In spite of all that has been done this century in developed countries to set up and improve services to
            meet the needs of disabled people, there is a powerful and perhaps increasing weight of opinion that
            much of what happens is inadequate or inappropriate. Much of the critique does not apply only to
            questions of disability but forms part of a whole process of questioning the effectiveness of all social
            services; but evidently, insofar as disabled people are specially dependent on such services, the issues
            are of special importance to them. Much of the strength of the criticism of services which disabled
            people themselves have put forward comes from the corroboration it receives from those who are not
            themselves disabled — whether professionals, voluntary workers, parents or other well-wishers. The
            elements which make up the critique are these:
            — fragmentation
                services are organized in relation to specific needs so that at the same time a disabled person has to
                relate to a number of professionals or agencies, none of which is capable of looking at his problems
                as a whole or concerned to consider the impact of one intervention on other aspects of the client's
                life. The professionals themselves tend to be overspecialized, and to have little, or at best, inad-
                equate contact with each other; coordinating activities are as a rule notoriously feeble, which is
                hardly surprising because typically there is no one person or agency in whom responsibility for
                coordination is invested. In the field of interprofessional cooperation, although as we have seen (')
                there are striking examples of good practice, the general standard falls far short of what is needed.
                Evidently this fragmentation effect can be especially acute during a transitional process when the
                disabled person passes in time from one agency or establishment to another ( 2 ), but all rehabili-
                tation is a process in this sense and therefore subject to the dangers of discontinuity.
       (') See paragraph 9 above and footnote.
       (2) This point is emphasized in a study recently completed for the Commission by the United Kingdom's
           National Bureau for Handicapped Students, entitled 'Survey of the situation in Member States of the
           Community concerning the access of disabled students to and within establishments and programmes of
           post-compulsary education'.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 136/14                               Official Journal of the European Communities                                        4.6.86
                — standardization
                    there is nothing new or remarkable in the assertion that bureaucrats and even providers of primary
                    services tend to simplify and categorize the problems of groups of clients and — at least in the eye
                    of the client himself — tend to underestimate the importance of factors specific to the individual.
                    Up to a point, this may be inevitable, and therefore best accepted; but from many disabled people,
                    acceptance cannot be expected. For them the complex particularity of the effects of their im-
                    pairment is the very essence of their life, all day and every day: either solutions take this singularity
                    into account or they are no use at all. It is no comfort whatever to know that most wheelchairs can
                    get through a door if your wheelchair cannot. A perpetual problem is that of the agent —
                    bureaucrat, professional, employer, hotel-keeper, whatever — who will adapt what he has on offer
                    so far and no further.
                — paternalism
                    if adequate in some respects, services may do too much in others. Above all for the mentally
                    retarded, but not only for them, it may be much easier to find protection and support than to
                    escape from them into a reasonable degree of necessary autonomy. Certain professions have
                    established a reputation for being lordly and patronizing. From a certain point of view, all disabled
                    people are by definition chronic patients, and traditionally patients must be given only that amount
                    of information about their own condition which is judged to be for their own good by the pro-
                    fessionals. The normal human reaction to this benevolent tyranny is submission: so the disabled
                    person 'delegates' or surrenders his human rights to others.
           17. Although, as has been seen, progress is being made in successfully encouraging more positive attitudes
               to disabled people among the general public; no one appears to disagree that the situation in this regard
               is still a long way from being satisfactory throughout our culture. The difficulties are generally much
               more severe with certain forms of impairment than with others — mental retardation, for example,
               paralysis affecting speech or facial expression, and (in a quite different, but equally intractable way)
               deafness; while mental illness, it must be admitted, involves special complications. The problem would
               appear to be a compound of a more or less rational apprehension that disabled people are likely to
               make inconvenient demands on us with quite irrational fears derived from an ignorance which has
               itself been fed by the system — the past tendency to set up segregated, often residential, establishments
               and separate services, which isolate people with disabilities from the rest of society. Moreover, the
               development of special services as well as tending to segregate disabled people has encouraged the
               belief that their needs are in fact being well met by the system and that therefore nothing further is
               required of the ordinary citizen in this regard than the payment of his taxes. Deinstitutionalization, in
               particular, and the whole integration movement of which it is a part, require a totally different
               approach, making a quite new demand on the local community to be aware of its disabled people and
               to take responsibility for them. There is therefore a vicious circle to be broken: the essential visibility of
               disabled people — on the street, in the theatre, at the pub — both depend on new attitudes and are a
               prerequisite for them.
           C. Positive factors concerning the employment of disabled people
           18. Disability being the universal, complex and profound phenomenon which it is, it has not been possible
               to regard the employment of disabled people without having first considered their general situation.
               Moving now from the general to the particular, it is best to start with some account of the positive
               factors in the employment field. Not to do this would be to give a quite wrong impression that all
               national legislation is more or less irrelevant and the whole battery of service provision largely
               ineffective. In fact in most Member States a major effort has been made to establish legislation to
               promote the economic integration of people with disabilities, and to set up or encourage services to
               facilitate this. There is also considerable evidence of current national activity to combat the bad effects
               of the present employment situation on disabled people.
           19. No category of legislative measure in this field has provoked more discussion than the 'quota' method,
               whereby employers are required to employ a certain percentage of disabled people by law. In fact,
               there is no such thing in the Community as one 'quota system': in one Member State, Denmark, there
               is no quota; among all other Member States the systems vary in every conceivable way — as to the size
               of firm affected, the difference of approach between the public and private sectors, the criteria for
 ---pagebreak--- 4.6.86                                  Official J o u r n a l of the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t i e s               N o C 136/15
             eligible disability, the percentage of disabled people to be taken on, the sanction in the case of default.
             Moreover there is no general evidence that quota systems are especially successful in achieving the aim
             of ensuring as far as possible full employment for disabled people, the purpose for which they were, in
            very different economic circumstances from the present, established. In most countries it does not seem
            that sanctions work, either being too weak to have any effect of too severe to be generally applicable
            in practice. Not suprisingly, there is no general expectation that, as things are, the record of
            effectiveness will improve in the foreseeable future.
        20. There would not then be much justification for including quota legislation as a positive factor were it
            not for the exceptional experience in the Federal Republic, where a much more highly developed
            system — a 'quote-levy-grant' system, in effect — has had very different results. In Germany all
            enterprises, whether public or private, employing more than 16 persons have to employ 6 % (') of
            persons with a disability assessed at 50 % working capacity or worse; failure to do this entails at
            present the payment of a levy of 100 DM per month for each post below the quota. The money so
            collected becomes a main source for the creation of employment support funds which are devoted to
            grants (for the adaptation of posts, for example) to employers satisfying or exceeding the quota and to
            provide follow-up assistance to disabled people in their working lives (2). No such system could be
            expected to work perfectly; but the German one does work to a far more than merely satisfactory
            degree. Although, on the most recent figures (1982), 75 % of employers liable did not satisfy the
            quota, a significant number exceeded it; the overall result is that nearly 77 % of the posts which should
            have been filled by disabled people under the statute were so filled, and that 5,9 % of all workers in
            the enterprises concerned were disabled to the very considerable extent required by the criteria. The
            great merit of the system is that it attacks by means of one mechanism both barriers to the employment
            of the disabled at once — the shortage of jobs and the shortage of financial resources to underpin
            rehabilitation services. It is also fundamental to the system that it refers to severely disabled people and
            applies to both public and private employers.
       21. Yet there is no evidence that Member States are planning to create from nothing a quota system on
            German lines, or to adapt and strengthen their present quota system on the German model. The
            opinion is often expressed that any such initiative would be counterproductive in present economic
            circumstances when so many non-disabled workers are unemployed, and that much more success
            would attend intensified programmes of advice, information and persuasion aimed at both sides of
            industry, complemented by financial incentives or compensations. In the United Kingdom it has been
            decided, after considerable debate, not to abolish a quota system which is generally regarded as
            unsuccessful. Instead there has been created alongside it a new official but voluntary code of good
            practice on the employment of disabled people, certainly intended to be the cornerstone of future
            policy and practice. The code has a number of advantages. It is a source of information, advice and
            reference as well as a prescription (albeit not obligatory). It applies not only to private firms but also to
            the public sector, which the United Kingdom quota system does not. It is in two parts, aiming at two
            levels: the policy level of directors and the practical level of line managers and of employees and their
            representatives.
       22. In the Netherlands also a new approach with some similar characteristics can be seen in measures now
            before the Parliament. Instead of a strengthened 5 % quota as once proposed, employers and trade
            unions will be required to cooperate to ensure that an equal opportunity for employment of disabled
            people is achieved in practice in all companies; in three years time, the government may impose a
            quota of 3 %-7 % on a given entreprise if necessary. It is evident therefore that there are a number of
            carefully prepared and constructive options which Member States can explore as models and whose
            relative effectiveness can and should be studied and compared at Community level in the years ahead.
       (') This is an average: the percentage can be varied, within the range 4-10 °/o depending on employers,
           regions and industries. In the public service, it may be as high as 12 % .
       (2) 60 % of the levy is retained by the Assistance Office of the Land concerned; 40 % goes to the Inter-
           Region Programme for the Resettlement of Severely Handicapped Persons in Employment, Occupation
           and Society.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 136/16                                Official Journal of the European Communities                                    4. 6. 86
           23. The requirement for a steady and reliable source of funds to finance training and employment
                 subsidies and services can be met by other means than a quota-levy-grant system. A good example is
                  the Fonds National pour le Reclassement des Handicapes in Belgium. Resourced 'painlessly' by contri-
                 butions from the general public (notably by means of a premium on motor insurance ('), the fund is the
                 means for ensuring as far as possible a reliable and even standard of rehabilitation services throughout
                 the country. Its great strength is that it can contribute to the needs not only of rehabilitation centres
                 but also of employers and of individual disabled people. In consequence the fund is not only a reliably
                  resourced instrument of policy but also a flexible one.
           24. Nor is a quota system, however effective, anywhere regarded as a sole solution to all the problems of
                 the employment of disabled people; the recognition of the need for coherent sets of measures, in which
                 a quota may or may not play a part, appears to be gathering force. Recent measures in Germany
                 envisage not merely some improvements in the quota scheme, but an increase in incentives for
                 employers to train and engage disabled workers, a strenghtening of the provisions against unfair
                 dismissal and of the role of the representative of disabled workers in companies, and revision of the
                 favourable holiday allowance for the disabled; to this must be added the exceptional strength and
                 quality of the provision for the vocational rehabilitation and training of both young and adult disabled
                 persons throughout the Federal Republic.
           25. Current initiatives in France also give evidence of a comprehensive approach, covering the acceptance
                 of disabled trainees into ordinary training situations, more flexible arrangements for the recruitment of
                 disabled employees into the public service and a number of schemes for financial incentives to
                 employers. These comprise support for individual vocational rehabilitation contracts, for the costs of
                 adapting work places and of additional staff and for the training of disabled apprentices, as well as a
                 scheme of recruitment grants over three years for employers who engage to recruit 4 % of disabled
                 workers and to promote rehabilitation and vocational training, and a programme of grants for disabled
                 people setting up their own businesses. The response of employers can be seen for example in the
                 appointment of staff responsible for the recruitment of disabled workers in the human rights direc-
                 torates of large companies, and in the priority given to the employment of the disabled by ETHIC, the
                 grouping for the purpose of reciprocal management support of 2 500 small and medium-sized
                 companies.
           26. In the United Kingdom, similarly, the code of good practice is not an isolated phenomenon. By regu-
                 lation, employers of more than 250 workers are required to include an account of their policy for the
                 employment of disabled people in the annual director's report. The motivation of employers is
                 developed by means of awards under the 'fit for work' scheme and help is being provided to them by
                 the setting up of a disablement advisory service to complement the specialized and general employment
                 services which already exist. Individual rehabilitation plans drawing on the full range of available
                 services are being devised in areas where the service of an employment rehabilitation centre cannot be
                 obtained, and increasing encouragement is being given to the creation of sheltered industrial groups as
                 an alternative to traditional sheltered employment.
           27. Other examples could of course be given to illustrate the progress in Member States not only in
                 developing useful specific measures but in confronting the problems of coordination and balanced
                 provision throughout the country. The purpose here is merely to indicate, with a few examples, that
                 such initiatives exist and are in many countries relatively well established. The contribution of the
                 private sector, sometimes involving useful collaboration with public authorities, is an important factor
                 in all Member States. Many rehabilitation centres are in private hands, although receiving financial
                 support from the State. Of the French preparation and follow-up teams in many areas, some are under
                 private, others under public, management. In France also the GIRPEH (Groupements Inter-
                 professionnels Regionaux pour la Promotion des Personnes Handicapees) play an important part in the
                 employment field; innovation, as instanced by the pathway scheme in the United Kingdom for the
                 economic integration of mentally retarded people, is sometimes pioneered by private initiatives.
           28. Many disabled people, including young people, have benefited from improvements during the last two
                 decades in training provision as well as in guidance, placement and follow-up services. Progress has
                 been made in both the range and quality of training available; in some countries the increase in the
                 number of mentally retarded people receiving serious vocational preparation is considerable. More
                 flexible methods, for example modular training systems, have been introduced, and more possibilities
                 exist for self-assessment and active participation by the trainee. Meanwhile, following on from the
          ( l ) This contributes more than 50 °/o of the fund; other sources include fire insurance and industrial
                accident insurance.
 ---pagebreak--- 4.6.86                                  Official J o u r n a l of the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t i e s            N o C 136/17
              post-war growth of well-resourced specialized institutions, there is now an increasing range of
              'integrated' training opportunities in normal courses and establishments open to all trainees, disabled
              and non-disabled alike. All the most significant of these developments are well represented in the
              Community's network of rehabilitation centres which is concerned with both physically and mentally
              disabled trainees and which is now considerably increasing its capacity to disseminate the results of
              innovation and the experience of good practice.
       29. Nor are all the trends in the job-market itself unfavourable. The growing demands for shorter working
              hours, the interest in shared work schemes, increased opportunity and better conditions for part-time
              work, more and better offers of early retirement — these are all trends which may be particularly
              attractive to some of the disabled population. It is generally recognized, too, that computerization will
              entail a general improvement in the conditions of many working situations, from which disabled people
              may especially benefit. The production of electronic components already offers suitable employment to
              disabled people. More important still, the technological revolution is offering both vastly improved aids
              to employment notably in the office sector (voice-synthesizers for blind secretaries, for example), and
              new specific job opportunities using the computers themselves (as programmers, for example, or
              programme operators), whether within a normal working environment of by means of 'telework'.
              There may well be expanding rather than diminishing opportunities also in sectors unconnected with
              the new technologies, tourist, forestry and horticultural industries for example. Most important of all
              for disabled people may be initiatives of a different kind in which the Community is playing a leading
              part — schemes to bring about a social guarantee for young people, to encourage the formation of
              small and medium-sized enterprises and to promote local employment initiatives.
       30. Of enormous importance to many disabled people — most frequently but by no means exclusively the
              mentally retarded — has been the opportunity for gainful occupation offered by the various systems of
              sheltered employment. Generalizations about sheltered workshops can be dangerous since their
              purpose, organization, and above all, the population for whom they cater vary considerably not only
              between different Member States but also within one country. Typically, sheltered workshops are
              subsidized — not the only enterprises of which that may be said. They have to compete in the sale of
              their products in the open market, achieving laid down productivity levels in the process ('). For many
              thousands of disabled people they have offered and continue to offer the principal effective contact
              with society, in some cases the only significant one.
       31. Three problems however, it must be admitted, beset the sheltered workshops as traditionally
              understood. They have tended to be concentrated on light manufacture without high technology, and
              the market for their goods is increasingly hazardous; they cost governments money at a time when
              public expenditure has to be reduced; there is a general feeling that what they have to offer in the way
              of integration is generally less than people are nowadays looking for. In theory the last point could be
              met insofar as the workshops were able to develop, at least for some of their members, a more typically
              transitional role — that of a flexibly organized staging-post between rehabilitation or special education
              and the world of open employment. In practice, however, it is not easy to reconcile the idea of
              continuous and planned loss of his best workers with the workshop manager's production quota, and
              the endeavour to solve that problem by means of premiums may not commend itself to governments in
              present circumstances. On the one hand, therefore, the problems confronting the workshops are
              admittedly formidable; on the other hand, the demand and need for posts in them in a period of
              recession is growing rather than declining and it is likely that they will continue to be an important
              element in the employment scene for disabled people in the foreseeable future.
       32. Two sorts of initiatives are already being undertaken to overcome the difficulties which beset sheltered
              employment. One is aimed to improve the potential of sheltered workshops as such by introducing new
              forms of activity, as alternatives or substitutes for the more traditional manufacturing or assembling
              processes: commercial services using computers is one promising area and intensive horticulture
              another. The other initiatives are all endeavours to preserve the supported environment (though not the
              security of tenure) which the traditional workshops offer while at the same time integrating the
              disabled people into normal firms and reducing the cost of the whole exercise. The schemes for
              individual 'protected posts' in Denmark and the 'sheltered industrial groups' already mentioned in the
              United Kingdom are examples of methods for combatting the problem of segregation while at the
              same time avoiding unattainable levels of expenditure.
       ( l ) Some workshops have limited 'privileges' on the market (special labels indicating their origin, right to
             first tender, for ex'ample). Many have no such advantage and the trend appears to be against this.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 136/18                              Official Journal of the European Communities                                     4.6.86
           33. A quite different example of the same general type of initiative is afforded by the creation of
               cooperatives; this is of exceptional interest, since it is a good example of an approach which is
               recommended at Community level as part of the general campaign to promote job creation and which
               has been proved to be exceptionally suitable for disabled people. The great majority of these
               developments have been in Italy, where traditional sheltered workshops have not been widely
               established. There is a strong preference for cooperatives which bring disabled people together with the
               non-disabled. The problems of launching the endeavours and finding markets for the products are
               certainly severe. But, in Italy at least, there have not been serious problems in relation to trade unions
               as far as wage levels are concerned, while the contribution that cooperatives, in favouring integration
               and enhanced responsibility, have already made to independent living is already established and must
               have considerable potential for the future.
           34. That the employment predicament of disabled people is grave and urgent will be shown in the next
               section. If there was nothing to build on, no chance of effectively fighting back, then there would be
               no point in trying, no justification for a Community initiative: we should do better to leave disabled
               people who want jobs to get them if they can, and rely on disability pensions as the only instrument of
               policy. The object of this section has been to show that the situation is not at all like that. On the
               evidence, there is a great deal on which to build, on the side of measures and services, even, too, on
               the side of the market. There is, therefore, not only a justification for the Community to reinforce its
               efforts, but no excuse for not doing so.
           D. Problems affecting the employment of disabled people
           35. One aim of the statistical study on the employment of disabled people which the Commission's Sta-
               tistical Office conducted in 1981 (') was to establish to what extent 'the working population which is
               disabled suffered more than any other social group from unemployment and the economic recession in
               general'. The conclusion of the study is, however, that 'most countries do not have statistical tools
               which enable this question to be answered'. Inevitably, therefore, precise numerical evidence is scrappy
               as well as being generally out of date, and the poor quality of the evidence is itself proof of the need
               for Community initiatives to promote research in this field. Such evidence as there is, however, fully
               corroborates the universal and firm belief that disabled people, in common with other disadvantaged
               groups, have suffered and are still suffering the effects of recession considerably more severely than the
               average, a view which is in particular also held by those in ministries or governmental agencies who are
               specially concerned with this problem.
           36. In the United Kingdom in 1978 the unemployment rate for disabled people was reckoned at 14 % as
               against a national rate of 5,5 %. In Denmark, in 1980 17,5 °/o of disabled job-seekers were unplaced at
               a time when the overall unemployment rate was running at about 7 %. In the same year the French
               Ministry of Labour estimated the unemployment rate for disabled people to be as high as 30 % , three
               times that of other workers; in Belgium also the figure is estimated at 25 % at least. In the
               Netherlands, for three years, 1978 to 1980, at a time when the overall unemployment rate was similar
               to that in Denmark an average of only 1 1 , 5 % of disabled people registered with employment
               exchange were placed in jobs each year.
           37. Meanwhile, in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1976 and 1980, while overall unemployment
               fell by 32 °/o, the unemployment of severely disabled workers rose by 60 %. Since 1980 in Member
               States the decline in the employment of disabled people has been particularly severe. The Irish
               National Rehabilitation Board has recorded a 31 % fall in the placement of disabled people between
               1982 and 1983, while in the United Kingdom the Manpower Services Commission reckons the long
               unemployment rate of disabled workers to be twice that of others. In Germany in 1983, 48 °/o of
               severely disabled people not at work had been unemployed for more than one year, the average period
               of unemployment for them being 16 months compared with 10 months for all unemployed workers.
               Both in Ireland and the United Kingdom, moreover, there is a marked drop in the number of referrals
               of disabled people to employment services, variously explained as due either to dissatisfaction with the
               specific services offered or to a more general disillusionment in face of the economic situation as a
               whole. To all this must be added the problem of under-employment, all authorities being agreed that
               many employed disabled people, among them conspiciously those with hearing impairments, are
               working at levels well below their capacity or potential.
          (') See paragraph 1(1) and footnote.
 ---pagebreak--- 4.6.86                                  Official Journal of the European Communities                                     N o C 136/19
        38. The causes which underlie this problem may be set out as follows:
             (a) Except in the Federal Republic of Germany, national quota legislation, introduced at a time of
                  economic growth, has failed to protect disabled workers at a time of economic recession.
             (b) Moreover, the other principal form of direct legislative action has been the establishment by law of
                  certain specific jobs as reserved occupations for disabled people — for example lift operators and
                  car-park attendants in the United Kingdom. The problem here is that this approach, welcome and
                  appropriate certainly when it was introduced, is now out of harmony with attitudes as they have
                  developed among disabled people and their families, the professionals themselves and even the
                  general public. Any tendency to identify disabled people with certain occupations, above all with
                  tasks which are somewhat lowly and undemanding of skill or training, is generally felt now to
                  smack of discrimination in the bad sense and to be contrary to the human dignity of the individual.
                  The strategy of reserved occupations does not appear to have a future.
            (c) In spite of the examples which exist of high-quality training in well-resourced establishments,
                  whether specialized or not, the overall picture of the training provision for disabled people is one
                  of basic inadequacy and often limited resources for adaptation, so that there is both an increasing
                  mismatch between the skills disabled people have to offer and the few vacancies available, and an
                  over-provision of low level training which does not equip disabled people for available jobs.
            (d) Whether because of a lack of training opportunities, or because of difficulties in undertaking
                  training which are directly related to a specific disability, a considerably greater than average pro-
                  portion of disabled workers are unskilled with little or no prospect of on-the-job training; they are,
                  therefore, exceptionally vulnerable to redundancy in a period of both recession and technological
                  change.
            (e) Specific technological changes may entail serious loss of employment opportunities which have
                  been particularly helpful to people with certain disabilities. Automation for production purposes
                  has already reduced occupations in secondary industry suitable for a number of disabled people
                  including those with mental impairments. Another important example is afforded by telephone
                 exchange systems, until now an extremely important area for the employment to blind people. New
                 exchanges are increasingly visual in their operation, and if they are not originally designed so as to
                 be easily adaptable for the needs of blind operators the cost of later adaptation may be insup-
                 portable so that vital jobs for blind people may be lost on a substantial scale. The means for
                 effectively coordinating action to prevent this trend do not exist.
            (f) Progress in establishing the necessary physical environment — housing, access, transport — to
                 support the employment of disabled people (particularly, but not only, those with physical
                 disabilities) has been generally too slow and too sporadic; this can entail additional insuperable
                 limitations to the employment opportunities available.
            (g) There is a perhaps widespread belief that the cost of vocational rehabilitation, a desirable 'extrava-
                 gance' in times of relative plenty, simply cannot be afforded in a period of economic restraint. The
                 employer may believe that, for every disabled employee, he will have to invest more in order to get
                 less return — at a time when manning is likely to be a major preoccupation. The only well-known
                 study on this subject refutes this opinion: according to the Du Pont Survey ('), rehabilitation pays
                 off. But the American situation is different: in the United States the employer (at least through his
                 insurer) may well be paying pensions as well as wages. Governments, nonetheless, must count the
                 social cost: among Government experts in the Comunity countries, whether pensions cost more
                 than effective rehabilitation is a disputed question. As long, however, as it is widely believed by
                 employers that taking on disabled people is not something they can afford now, the problem exists
                 and will affect with special severity young disabled people looking for their first job. Where the
                 motivation of employers to resettle their own workers who become disabled may be in decline, it is
                 evident that disabled workers looking for a job from outside the company will have greatly
                 reduced chances.
            (h) Negative attitudes towards questions of physical appearance and speech defects affecting certain
                 disabilities may well be still widespread among the general public — certainly, which is quite as
                 important, they are a prominent feature of what many employers believe about the general public.
                 This, without doubt, acts as a serious hidden barrier to the recruitment of disabled people into jobs
                 in the tertiary sector of the economy (commerce, tourism, office-work, personal services) for which
                 they may otherwise be particularly well-suited, and which probably constitute one of the most
                 important areas of opportunity of the future.
       (') 'Equal to the task', the Du Pont Survey of Employment of the Handicapped, 1981.
 ---pagebreak--- N o C 136/20                           Official J o u r n a l of the E u r o p e a n C o m m u n i t i e s               4.6.86
             (i) The complex relationship between rehabilitation measures and financial benefit systems does not
                 always work coherently, and can even operate as a disincentive to employment. The problem is not
                 that the mere existence of substantial disability benefit provision operates against employment
                 aspiration in a global way. If economic recession were to continue for a long period, this might be
                 a consequence; until now, however, the principle that 'active rehabilitation' takes precedence over
                 'disability pension' appears to have been operated, on the whole, effectively in the Member States:
                 disability benefit is not, for example, generally paid to a person who after a successful rehabili-
                 tation programme refuses a suitable job offer. The real difficulties are more specific, and concern
                 the relationship between disability benefits and certain kinds of employment patterns which can be
                 of special interest to disabled people — part-time work above all but also 'trial' work periods and
                 gradual taking up of work or return to it. In some Member States a disabled person receiving
                 benefit may simply become worse off by taking up part-time work, or during a period of gradual
                 entry to work. There may also be powerful disincentives to otherwise useful 'trial' work schemes,
                 since it may be difficult, if the trial does not succeed, to retrieve a benefit once lost, and at least
                 there may be detrimental delays. Lack of flexibility in the systems can create special problems in
                 relation to the patterns of mental illness; other disabled people ask for a definition of 'partial
                 incapacity' as offering the options they need. In all these respects, however, there are also examples
                 of good, flexible practice in some Member States and, subject to financial considerations, ther is no
                 reason why progress should not be made in meeting these problems throughout the Community.
             (j) While there are widespread efforts to engage the support of employers by means of financial
                 subsidies and programmes of information and advice, the take-up by employers of adaptation
                 allowances can be disappointing. Moreover there is little evidence of concerted efforts to engage
                 the interest and influence of the trade union movement in support of the employment of disabled
                 people.
             (k) With notable exceptions, the participation of disabled people themselves, at national, regional,
                 local or enterprise level, in the taking or implementation of decisions which directly concern their
                 economic integration, is not a prominent feature of the European Community scene.