NYAPRS Note: Speaker after speaker has been providing powerful testimony today at a NYS Assembly hearing on employment of people with disabilities, calling on New York State to take immediate action to support them to get or return to work. The hearing will continue throughout the day; watch it now at https://nystateassembly.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&event_id=2952. Attached is powerful NYAPRS testimony that was just delivered by our COO Len Statham.
Assembly Focuses On Employment For People With Disabilities
By Shannon Young Politico October 20, 2021
Assembly lawmakers signaled Wednesday that enhancing employment opportunities for New Yorkers with disabilities will be a top priority in Albany, as a new panel began to examine current barriers and potential solutions.
Key context: The Committee on People with Disabilities and Subcommittee on Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities — which were established in January — joined the chamber’s labor committee in hearing from more than 60 witnesses, including state officials and advocates, on how New York can create more employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities and better connect them with jobs that already exist.
Assemblymember Tom Abinanti, a Greenburgh Democrat and chair of the Committee on People with Disabilities, said the testimony will likely shape future policy decisions. Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D-Brooklyn) said the daylong hearing, to her knowledge, marked the first time state lawmakers have publicly heard testimony on the issue.
“As somebody who’s worked in the field of disability rights and education and law for the last, I don’t want to tell you how many decades, this is a really important hearing,” she said.
What they said: Assemblymember Latoya Joyner, a Bronx Democrat who chairs the labor committee, said that while New York has “led” the country “on issues of anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation protections for employees, including workers with disabilities, more work still needs to be done to enhance employment opportunities and inclusion for people with disabilities.”
She pointed to federal data suggesting that while nearly two-thirds of Americans with disabilities want to take part in the workforce, only a third of those individuals are employed — numbers which she noted have likely fallen during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Roger Bearden, executive deputy commissioner of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, told lawmakers that the pandemic and its related shutdowns have reduced usage of several of his agency’s programs, as well as employment opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. As the agency rebuilds, he said, it is looking at new ways to support New Yorkers, such as seeking $30 million in federal funds to help achieve employment outcomes.
Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon testified that the pandemic and the related increase in unemployment “has meant a massive shift, not only in the type of jobs that are available, but also who is looking for work, when, where and how.” That, she said, has highlighted the need for major changes in how her agency does business.
Reardon said she’s hopeful that the interest of Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers will lead to “renewed energy, emphasis and attention,” especially among the public.
“We need to have a public awareness campaign so that employers understand hiring a person with disabilities is not charity,” she said. “It doesn’t cost them more, they’re not doing something nice for someone. They’re hiring an employee just like they hire everybody else. … That is a really key part of this. This country is now going through a great examination of diversity and inclusion: It includes these communities.”
Subcommittee Chair Chris Burdick (D-Westchester) agreed and urged advocates to keep up their pressure on lawmakers.
“If there’s anything that I don’t want this to be, is that this hearing is a flash in the pan and interest in this topic dissipates as we move on to budgets, redistricting and other things that occupy the minds and hearts of my colleagues in the Legislature,” he said. “I look to you folks to help us, guide us, to help change the mindsets of people in this state and across the nation: People with disabilities are not invisible. People with disabilities can be an integral part of society and can be treated just like anyone else.”