by Catherine Delahunty
It was pretty bizarre hearing Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government, encouraging a business to discriminate against employees who might have impairments. Between Rodney and the builder we heard pretty much all the classic arguments that reinforce negative attitudes towards removing the disabling barriers. In case you missed it, a business was planning to put in a shower for employee use and didn’t want to spend an additional $10,000 to make it wheelchair accessible.
The Minister of Local Government suggested this was probably illegal (so he couldn’t mandate the behaviour) but thought the business should carry on because it wasn’t fair to expect people to carry these extra costs. It has since come to light that it wasn’t actually a requirement under the law, given the size of the building involved, but is that really the issue?
CCS Disability Action slammed Rodney, and rightfully so:
This isn’t just about one workplace at a fixed point in time. A building that is made accessible for disabled people is also going to be useful for big people, families with pushchairs, elderly people with limited mobility and anyone who has ever picked up an injury playing rugby,” adds Viv Maidaborn.
The businessman also commented that he was unlikely to employ someone using a wheelchair in the future.
How the hell does he know that, unless he is prejudiced against disabilities?
What if Rodney Hide fell over during the next “Dancing with the Stars” series and damaged his spinal cord. Would he see it differently?
There is a growing body of evidence that tells us people with impairments are above average employees if their needs are met. Mark Bagshaw, senior executive with IBM and disability advocate says:
Ninety-five percent of working age New Zealanders with disabilities could be working, but the workforce participation rate of people with disabilities is only 30 percent. That’s a huge cost to welfare – think how much less it would cost to give them work opportunities.
New Zealand is short of skilled workers by 60-70,000. Research shows that the employment cost of a disabled employee is less than that of an ordinary worker.
And if you build a walk-in shower everybody can use it, whether they have been cycling on two wheels or rolling to work on the two wheels of a wheelchair.
The worst aspect of this is not the business resisting dealing with the costs of transition from a disabling environment to an equitable environment. We all have to deal with that transition.
The worst aspect of this is the Minister of Local Government justifying retrogressive, disrespectful and discriminatory attitudes. NoRightTurn spelled it out very well in his post regarding the ethics required of a Minister for the Crown. I couldn’t agree more.
Published in Society & Culture by Catherine Delahunty on Mon, February 9th, 2009
Tags: building code, Catherine Delahunty, disability, discrimination, politics
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Seems like an employer who was putting in a shower for his employees who exercise and/or walk to work should be praised.
Tell you what Catherine, how about this employer (who employs other people and pays tax, including your salary) builds this shower taking into account all and any requirements that may/might/possible occur. Which part of your vast business experience, which quoting your bio, includes no less than milking goats, growing vege’s and being a uni drop out, qualifies you for any utterance in which pressures are undertaken in running a business. Seems like it was an easy hit. Good god, for a green party you spend most of your time squarking on about socialist issues. Time to come clean.
So tell me Cat (with your vast array of business experience), which employee do you want to pick to go receive the unemployment cheque to pay for the loss of income paying for this shower?
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Actually it turns out the office had his rules wrong.
The employer should have been required to provide a handicapped accessible shower if he was adding more than one shower.
Quite a sensible rule in the plan.
So Rodney was not advocating breaking a rule but abiding by it.
So do you support bureaucrats making up interpretations so suit their own desire to thwart everyone from doing anything?
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If they’re all cycling to work in the city, prob won’t be long before one of them is disabled. Good luck out there, lads…
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Maybe the employer should just shut down so he can’t discriminate anymore.
Of course people are prejudiced against disabilities, for perfectly rational reasons. I wouldn’t want a blind person being my GP, and I wouldn’t want someone in a wheelchair being a flight attendant.
If YOU want a wheelchair accessible shower in the workplace, why don’t YOU pay for it? While we’re at it, are all your properties wheelchair accessible? If not, is it because you don’t know anyone who uses one who would visit you?
Same diff. Get out of the way of peaceful people hurting no one. If you think it’s a good idea, pay for it yourself – or does the idea of not forcing people to do what you want seem rather alien?
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oh and I must love this quote “And if you build a walk-in shower everybody can use it, whether they have been cycling on two wheels or rolling to work on the two wheels of a wheelchair”.
A two wheeled wheelchair IS a bicycle.
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A mate of mine built a new Ski/Snowboard Hire a couple of years back and had to comply fully with disabled regs. Kinda silly I’d say!
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Good on Rodney!
So, a shower for employees, or no shower at all. That is the choice.
He can’t afford 10K, and no one will benefit from the extra expenditure anyway.
All this law does is deprive employees of a shower.
>>There is a growing body of evidence that tells us people with impairments are above average employees if their needs are met.
Not if one runs a courier business….for which one might need to install a shower or two…(if we’re to carry this wheelchair theme through to logical conclusion)
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Well done Rodney! Bulls##t regulations like this deserve nothing other than trating with contempt and ignoring….and the CSS should be told to bugger off out of it….that fascist crap went out with the Clark dictatorship.
If a person doesn’t want to put in a disabled shower or even hire disabled people then good for them! Its their right to do so….the right to liberty and property.
People have had enough of these whining special intrests forcing themselves on other people and THEIR property…..stick that in your pipe Green bullyboys.
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Well said Catherine!
Owen McShane said: So Rodney was not advocating breaking a rule but abiding by it. So do you support bureaucrats making up interpretations so suit their own desire to thwart everyone from doing anything?
No, Owen, Rodney though he was advocating breaking a rule when he said it. That fact that he was later shown to have not been doesn’t excuse him. And these rules don’t “thwart anyone from doing anything” they make it possible for people with impairments to do things (like work) that the absence of rules frequently precludes them from doing.
libertyscott said: Of course people are prejudiced against disabilities, for perfectly rational reasons.
If a person’s impairment puts them or someone they are working with at risk, and that risk cannot be mitigated, then discrimination is acceptable. So, in the medical profession, for example, I can see nothing wrong with a blind psychiatrist (supported by a nurse if visual testing of patients is required) but a blind surgeon is just plain silly.
But that is not what this thread is about – it is about people who choose to design buildings and their facilities in a way that is excluding of people with impairments.
As someone who has recently been searching for new commercial premises, I know it is extremely difficult to find premises thet meet both commercial needs and are compliant with NZS 4121: (2001) (Design for Access and Mobility – Buildings and Associated Facilities). It has us taken 2 months to find anything remotely suitable and compliant, and will still require a few grand redesigning and modifying the toilet facilities to meet compliance. I know it is a pain, and expensive, but this is not an excuse to just carry on having our workplaces and their facilities excluding people with impairments from working in them (or, in the case of buildings that are accessible to the public, visiting them).
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# samiam Said:
There are plenty of paraplegic skiers on the slopes.
Still silly?
peace
W
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Go Cath!
Well, actually, Rodney doesn’t even need to injure himself to discover the joys of impaired access – just try taking a superannuitant who’s had a fall & wrecked a hip or knee (like your mum might, Rodney?) out for a stroll around the CBD to look at the sales.
I’ve seen a few out in town during the January sales, and those with walking sticks or wheelchairs have been looking hot and vexed in some unfriendly venues.
You’d think businesses would have more respect for the ability of the customer to gain access to the goods, in these uncertain times.
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>>Well said Catherine! /Go Cath!
Well come on you lot. Put your money where your mouth is and send the guy a cheque for 8K.
Meanwhile, I wonder if Green politicians will fly (heh!) back to Wellington in a small plane piloted by a deaf & dumb pilot with mental health issues? Good luck with that
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heh ….deaf and blind, I mean….
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Bliss, that’s why we have a Disabled Skiers Association and the Adaptive Ski Programs. They have the equipment and expertise to do provide an excellent service. Rather than waste money on disabled access to a place that does not cater to the needs of the disabled, it would be far better to be able to fund the appropriate specialist group.
It’s a bit like asking a GP to have brain surgery equipment on hand, just in case.
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BP –
once again, trolling by a totally unrealistic example.
Disabled employees work in Libraries, offices, hospitals, retail shops, as university lecturers, as patient advocates, as social workers, as policy advisors .. and in many more situations, but those are just off the top of my head.
You may not even notice the disability of the person you’ve interacted with, because some people living with disabilities are indistinguishable from fully-able-bodied staff-members.
They just might need prosthetic assistance to overcome a mobility problem, or pain management medication for muscular disabilities, or a hearing aid that’s so discrete that you wouldn’t notice it, unless intimately involved with the person wearing it.
Your attitude to this topic suggests both a phobia about disability, and a complete lack of compassion for your fellow (wo)man.
Perhaps a review of the ‘real men’ who make up most of the tetraplegic patients at Burwood Spinal Unit, the first port of call for those who live through a major car accident or footy injury, would allay your fears about disabled people?
Or a look at the courageous lives of children born with disabilities, and their equally courageous parents and caregivers?
As would the realisation that, in many cases, there but for the grace of whatever you believe in, go you or I?
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Katie,
Really? There are disabled people working in our community? Really?
Sarcasm ends.
The point is that you can’t hope to accomodate all people, all the time. Is your house disability friendly? Every room? Why not? Will you build a new house? I already know the answer – it would be too expensive to do so.
The legislation won’t mean a shower for the disabled is installed. It will simply mean no shower is installed at all.
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BluePeter, I think you are (maybe deliberately) missing the point. My house is not a workplace, and not somewhere the public frequent. If I or my partner or children had physical impairments, I would gladly make the modifications (hopefully with Government assistance, but if not, without).
A workplace is a different issue. Why should I, as an employer, deny someone a job when that person is the best qualified person to do the job, just because I can’t be bothered to or decide it is too expensive to modify the workplace so that person can work in it. Actually, failing to do so would be counter-productive, because I would be denying employment to the person who could do the best job if that person had an impairment that the workplace excluded.
And remember, disability is the minority group anyone can join in an instant!
If you happened to join it by accident, would you want workplaces to strive to accommodate your impairment as far as practicable to allow you to engage in productive employment, or would you prefer to languish for the rest of your potential working life on ACC?
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“The businessman also commented that he was unlikely to employ someone using a wheelchair in the future.
How the hell does he know that, unless he is prejudiced against disabilities?”
He knows that because, unlike Catherine, he knows what business he is in and what purpose he is using the storage space for. To the best of my knowledge an employer can discriminate against those who are physicly disabled when heavy lifting is a key part of the job and, rest assured, safes are danged heavy.
But there are two other important questions that are equally deserving of the Greens attention.
1) If he had spent the extra $8,000 then discovered that the council had misinterpreted the law would he have been compensated by the council?
2) If he had simply decided not to build the shower instead of contacting Hyde how many other small business owners would have been prevented from being cycle friendly employers as a result of the council’s error not being corrected?
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Toad,
The intention is sound, but the practicalities are not. If the shower cost the same amount, I’m sure the business owner would have no problem complying.
He is weighing up the extra cost – $8,000 – vs the benefit. Is a potential disabled hire worth that overhead? Maybe, but most likely not.
Also, his line of work may make a disabled hire out of the question i.e. heavy work, high mobility, etc.
Finally, does a disabled person he may hire even want to take a shower? I’m able bodied, and have never once taken a shower at a workplace. The personal benefit for a potential disabled hire, at some point, in the future might not even be there.
Can you see that 8k worth of value doesn’t exist? It may not even exist if he already had a disabled hire, let along some abstract possibility he may hire a disabled person in future (i.e. the person doesn’t want to use teh shower)?
The reality of this situation is that no shower will be installed, benefiting no one.
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I’ve hit this kind of regulation as a builder of all sorts of things and the disability thing is just the tip of an iceberg.
When building stairs between floors in houses you have to make them so that overweight people with hardly any ability to still walk well can get up them… in a rest home , I agree, but what if the house is full of children and lean and mean adults. Why should they overbuild?
Likewise if one is taking the old rusty tray off a ute and welding up a new one why should one have to build it for carrying half a ton of scrape iron when the person whos using it would never do that.
Building things for the lowest common denominator as opposed to general usage is stupid and requires far too many resources that could be used for other things. Is the Green way the low road or the high road, the short payback or the long reward.
When I was young I realised I had one may or may not be termed a disability. I was creative and working class. I realised I needed tools and skills if I wanted the life I felt suited me. I bought tools so that I could make for myself all those things I couldn’t afford as an artist without a group of rich friends for support. I make my own clothes, I fix my cars, I do the buildings I live in and wire and plumb them.
Giving people things they haven’t worked for doesn’t encourage growth in skills and the use of tools needed to adapt to circumstance. If anything, it dumbs people down and teaches them that society is there to support them as opposed to a singular person who realises we all need to support society.
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but the future is an awfully long time… (i hope). assuming the cost of disabled access is not too great, may as well go for it. $8000? surely all they are doing is adding a rail for the disabled person to haul themselves in by?
i can see that wheelchair-bound people might well choose to wheel to work if the option of having a shower when they got there was available, just as fully able people might want to jog, bike or walk to work & have a shower once they got there.
the fact that you don’t see much of that behaviour now is undoubtedly because so many workplaces don’t have showers.
i’m curious to know, does hide believe we should break drug laws too?
and does he believe in general that we should all choose which laws to break & which ones to keep, or does he believe we should keep those laws he approves of & break the ones he doesn’t like?
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well society should be there to support disabled people artyone.
for that matter if the benefits of getting the disabled to work are so great, perhaps they could consider a subsidy for upgrading the shower & other such projects to include disabled access
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>>because so many workplaces don’t have showers
That’s often due to the level of compliance now required.
The result, guaranteed by the blundering Catherine’s of this world, is the cost of building goes up, and the number of facilities decrease.
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>>well society should be there to support disabled people
Society has yet to ask them if they even want a shower at work…….
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Toad said “is about people who choose to design buildings and their facilities in a way that is excluding of people with impairments”
Yes it is THEIR facilities – NOT the people with impairments. Private property isn’t the business of other people. Is Catherine’s home wheelchair accessible with wheelchair accessible bathing? I doubt it.
The idea that “Why should I, as an employer, deny someone a job when that person is the best qualified person to do the job, just because I can’t be bothered to or decide it is too expensive to modify the workplace so that person can work in it.”
Is simple. It is YOUR business, YOU should be able to deny anyone a job. I don’t owe ANYONE a job. If I risk a disabled person not being able to work there, then that’s my loss. Nobody should force me to contract with whoever I don’t want to.
It’s the difference between those who think that private property is private property or that people are forced to abide by what other people demand. The Greens don’t believe in private property rights, I do. If you want to support disabled people feel free, encourage others to do so, promote it, promote employers that don’t.
However try something new – stop using force. Sometimes employers will provide facilities, sometimes they wont. However, they are wealth creators, jobseekers are not – they are seeking to assist in wealth creation, but without the employer they would be unemployed drones.
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