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. . . . . .
University Daily Kansan, December 3, 1980
Page 5
Blind
From page 1
"Our goal is to train people to work in outside employment, but it doesn't cost as fast as we do."
IN THE PAST TWO YEARS, five workers have held the Topkeeper role to take competency jobs.
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Most blind people who are rehabilitated in Kansas go through personalized programs with assigned counselors, according to Richard Schutz, director of Kansas Services for the Blind, the state agency that oversees all programs for visually impaired Kansas.
"Sheltered employment accounts for a very small percentage of the clients we rehabilitate-
According to a nationwide study conducted in
according to the work of blind workshop employee
move into private jobs.
"I don't know why they call this a training center," Marguerite said. "Some people have seen it."
The National Federation of the Blind, an organization of about 50,000 blind people, has asked the same question, and they have asked it of their colleagues. They ask of the organizations' Douglas County chapter.
From their Washington D.C. headquarters, members of the group lobby against the workshops in their own states. They picket police cars to try to convince blind workers to join unions.
"We've been called militants, hellraiders and radicals," Anderson said. "But we're serious."
The Federation won a partial victory this year
days" were gainst
when the National Labor Relations Board ordered workshops in Houston and Cincinnati to give workers the right to collective bargaining.
When the shops refused to obey the order, the board turned to the courts, said James Gashel, the Federation's Washington legislative office, and said the cases are pending in Texas and Ohio district courts.
"If we win, those shops would be the first to collective bargaining," he said. "This is a big step."
THE FEDERATION scored another coup this year when the labor department ordered workshops to pay blind workers the minimum wage during a four-year experimental period. The order will take effect in April 1981, Gashel said.
Meanwhile, shop managers already are resisting the order.
Two weeks ago, Albright joined sheltered shop managers from around the country to protest the farm bill.
However, Gashel said, the workshop managers' fears are unfounded.
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"Most employers complain whenever minimum wage increases," he said, "but if they don't want to shut their plants down, they'll make the adjustments that are necessary."
One of the first adjustments made after the wage increase may be to lay off less productive workers.
Kansas Industries for the Blind, which manufactures mops, cleaning cloths,
pillowcases and tunices for highway workers, is losing money. It has lost money almost every year since 1950. Schutz said. However, the plant would be covered over operating costs are covered by state taxes.
"Something's got to give," he said. "Either they'll be last door the taxpayers are going to be."
There already have been layoffs at the Topeka factory. Albright said.
Berry said the workshop's flow of government and private contracts had slowed to a trickle this fall, so the plant sends workers for weeks, brings them back for a few days so they still work on projects, and makes up for unemployment benefits. After that, he said, the workshop sends them home again.
"I've been laid a month twice—once three days ago and once about a month ago," Marguerite said. "I'll tell you the truth."
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SHE SAID she couldn't afford to remain idle. She now supports her husband, who has arthritis, her daughter, who was laid off this month, and her granddaughter.
shman
As battles for higher wages and collective bargaining are waged in Washington and in other major cities, the workers at Kansas Industries for the Blind are fighting only for sur-
"The problem is keeping work going in these plants, 'Albrightham Park.' We're short of work here."
Kansas workshops for the blind compete for government contracts with workshops in state penitentiaries, he said, and the prisons usually are given first choice.
*Workshops say the blind are patients, not workers. They say they are taking care of them.*
As contracts become more and more scarce, Albright said, it may become less expensive to close the workshops and increase the pensions that blind workers are given.
MOST PEOPLE who are blind do not need constant care and shelter, he said. Recent laws guarantee that the handicapped cannot be any job for which they are otherwise qualified.
"I think it's wrong when a criminal gets priority over the handicapped. That's the law, but it's one of the bad laws."
"They could eliminate my job, Berry's job and my office and save a bunch of money."
Anderson said jobs such as computer programming, typing, maintenance, teaching, and administration all could be adapted to the strengths and weaknesses of a blind person.
But he said the money was not as important as the self-esteem the workers gained after each day's work and that many of his employees could work only in a sheltered environment.
"Say what you want, people only hire hired-people if they feel they have to."
In the battle over sheltered workshops, there are no good guys or bad guys. Both shop managers and Federation members say they have the workers' interests in mind.
vancing. It is a safe environment, and worker stay in the office will think they can not be outside in the outside world.
Anderson, who was once a congressional aide,
said he agreed with Gasel. Both men are blind.
However, some workers choose to work instead in in sheltered workshops, he said, where they receive housing and training.
But Gasel said the shop managers were too protective of blind workers.
"There are many blind people who have been told and told that they aren't competent," he said. "It's just like a normal child—you tell him he's retarded long enough and he'll believe it."
Some of the workers who left the Topeka workshop return; either because of their health or because they think the competitive job market is too much for them.
OTHER WORKERS, like Marguerite, have never tried to leave.
But 40 years ago when she was a young, black graduate of a high school for the blind, a teacher at the same school.
"I never wanted to sew for a living."
SHE SAID she was now too old to change jobs,
and at 67, with a family of four to support her, she is
sick.
The workshop does not have a pension plan, Berry said, so when Marguerite retires, her family will have to live on her disability insurance. Their income would be cut in half.
Marguerite started her sewing machine again by pumping a treadle on the floor. The black paint on the treadle had been worn away by use of and it glinted under the workshop lights.
If she had her life to live again, Marguerite said, she would have gone to college and then become a telephone operator.
"I haven't thought about quitting," she said. "I'll just have to keep on going as long as I can."
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