The Able Disabled

The war has provided many jobs in the U.S. for the crippled and disabled. More and more of them are finding a place. In the Kaiser shipyards, for example, a paralyzed arm is no hindrance to I. L. Matthews, who walks under a crane to warn other workers to get out of the way. Deaf James Porter works as a burner in the noisy plate shop where nobody else can hear anyone speak either. Of some 5,000,000 U.S. cripples, it is estimated that 75% are employable--and of some 600,000 epileptics, 80%.

As yet, nothing like this number is working.

Most handicapped people must acquire skills and self-confidence so they can work. Many are too timid to apply. Some of them need hearing aids, special exercises, artificial limbs and braces. To help such people:

Milwaukee's Curative Workshop offers physical and occupational therapy.

Manhattan's Federation of Crippled and Disabled (run entirely by people with orthopedic defects) gives training, wooden legs, braces and a job-placement service.

The National Jewish Hospital in Denver teaches blueprint reading, drafting, precision instrument work and other non-strenuous industrial jobs to arrested tuberculosis cases.

"Auracraft" in Cleveland trains epileptics. Organizations like these are few--but have never been so useful.

Square Pegs. Before 1940, no matter how well prepared a handicapped worker was, he had a poor chance of a job. Employers not only had their pick of the labor supply--in many cases workmen's compensation laws made such employment risky. For example, if a worker already blind in one eye lost the sight of the other in a factory accident, the company might have to pay a great deal for total disability.

One outstanding exception to the general policy was the Ford Motor Co. Henry Ford had long made it a practice to hire the handicapped in proportion to their presence in the plants' communities. The late Edsel Ford wrote in the Saturday Evening Post last winter that 10% of the company's employes in Detroit are handicapped--4,390 blind or deaf, 7,262 otherwise disabled.

Today the labor shortage is teaching many firms that handicapped workers are worth the extra care they need: job fitting, transportation arrangements, special legal provisions, safety precautions (epileptics should not operate dangerous machines, fat people Should not Climb ladders). Consolidated Aircraft's 700 handi capped workers, for example, have the best attendance record in the plant. One small company has had such success with handicapped workers that they now com prise the majority of the employes : about 75 of the 85 workers at Minneapolis' C. & F. Tool Co. are handicapped.

Square Holes. Lockheed Aircraft employs 600 handicapped workers (18 have Seeing Eye dogs) all at the same pay as other workers. R. A. Von Hake, vice president in charge of manufacturing, says they are "hard-hitting, dependable and capable. They seem determined to compete with or excel the physically normal workers and they put in extra effort." Two of Lockheed's blind workers proved inventive: Ted Bushnell, who runs a parts numbering machine, invented a foot pedal which upped the machine's production 50%. James Garfield devised an adjustment knob and a turn-on switch for his burring roll which have been adopted throughout the plant.

Dr. William A. Sawyer, Eastman Kodak's medical director, points out that the hiring of the handicapped should be good training for employers who will provide work for returning injured fighting men. Already certain shortages of men with handicaps surprisingly have developed: Eastman Kodak could not find enough totally blind men to determine whether they were in general good material for dark room jobs.

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