At the risk of being excluded from doing business with the government, the Labor Department intends to require most businesses to adopt, in each job group, a hiring quota of 7 percent for disabled persons.
To Uncle Sam, “disabled” includes people with diabetes, depression, heart disease, and cancer. Also people who have trouble “standing, sitting, reaching, lifting, bending, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and interacting with others.”
Doesn’t this include just about everyone? On the face of it, companies should have no trouble meeting the 7-percent quota.
But no, the feds mean business. They debarred a Kentucky company from federal contracts for refusing to hire applicants suffering from serious back injuries and hernias for – get this – heavy-lifting jobs. They punished a Texas company for refusing to hire a man who suffered uncontrollable epileptic seizures to drive a truck full of hazardous waste. Loaded with common sense, those bureaucrats.
The government also wants companies to invite employees to label themselves disabled prior to being hired and once a year thereafter. We’re talking lawsuit city!
The government’s percentage of disabled employees, however, is only 5 percent, not 7 percent. The Labor Department’s percentage has decreased every year since Obama took office, despite hiring more employees. What’s good for the goose is good for the . . . oh well, forget it.
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