Library Collections: Document: Full Text

A complete background of the health of each registrant is essential before any job placement plan can be considered. The Society discovered that only a small number of the individuals reporting for registration had been recently known to a hospital or private physician. Accordingly, a free medical examination service was developed whereby physicians with a knowledge of industrial job requirements were able to make specific recommendations as to the employability of each individual. This system has proved so successful that less than one half of one per cent of the registrants referred for job interviews have been rejected by company doctors.

For those persons unable to meet industrial requirements we are usually able to offer some constructive help. The Placement Bureau had been given space in the Association for the Crippled and Disabled Building through the interest of Miss Bell Greve, Executive Secretary. The splendid facilities of the Association are made available to those cases who need appliances, or where physical therapy, work treatment, medical case work, or sheltered shop activity is indicated. The office of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, located in the same building, is used as a training agency and routinely refers to the Placement Bureau all persons who have completed their training courses. With both of these agencies as well as with hospitals, schools, and social service agencies, a plan was worked out for the exchange of all information on a registrant which would have a value in vocational counselling.

BEFORE PEARL Harbor, the Society had regarded this placement program as being essential in rounding out community services for the disabled. Results were interpreted in terms of the thousand persons registered by the Bureau, the handicapped men and women who had been restored to productive work, the cooperative attitude of employers who realized the value of selective hiring, and the reaction of the general public to the aims and objectives of this undertaking. After December 7, the Society immediately geared up this program to meet the war time needs of industry. Handicapped men and women must be prepared to take the places of those called for active military service. They must be trained to fill the many new jobs in the factories turning out the planes, tanks, and guns needed for Democracy and Freedom.

Handicapped workmen at one local plant were instrumental in helping to eliminate a bottleneck which threatened to slow up the entire machine tool industry. The Cleveland Twist Drill Company, foremost employer of handicapped persons in Ohio, came through with a 600 per cent increase in the production of drills, reamers, and cutting tools, thus averting a critical shortage of vital war materials. For this accomplishment the Cleveland Twist Drill Company was given the first joint Army-Navy Merit Award presented to any firm in the United States. The receipt of this award symbolized the success of the preferential hiring policy of this progressive concern, which utilized handicapped individuals on all jobs where the disability did not interfere with work performance. Other employers impressed by this record went to the Cleveland Twist Drill Company, studied production records, accident reports, and labor turn-over figures of disabled workmen, and went back to their plants to modify their policy with regard to the hiring of handicapped job seekers.

ONE OF the most highly regarded employees of the Cleveland Twist Drill Company is Ted Hanson, who had been severely injured in an explosion, which caused. both hands and arms to be crippled. The injury sustained in the accident was so severe that he was hospitalized for three years, and then transferred to a nursing home. When he was finally ready for restricted activity, he was brought into the workshop of the Association where he was assigned to the upholstery shop for caning chairs and tying springs to bring back the use of his arms and hands. Finally Ted's health improved to such a point that he could be considered for outside work. Through our test results, which revealed far better hand-arm coordination and finger dexterity than we thought, he was placed on a job to be trained as a milling machine operator. Ted has made good on this job, he has been advanced to foreman of his department and is in charge of the training of new workers. This job represents the goal of an eleven year uphill fight for health and the chance to be self supporting again. Ted, in a two-year period, has paid off his outstanding debts, has put more than a thousand dollars in his bank account and is investing 22 per cent of his wages in War Bonds.

OTHER HANDICAPPED men and women placed by our Bureau have earned similar promotions and have been given jobs of real responsibility. Two of our registrants are doing personnel work. One is an intelligent young man, handicapped by a spastic paralysis of one side of his body. The other, born with only one arm, has shown marked ability in working with people. A girl with a back deformity has proven to be one of the outstanding workers in a large factory producing signal equipment for the Navy. Another man with both bands deformed since birth is in charge of testing metals for a large manufacturer of Army transport trucks, and a boy on crutches is helping draft plans for planes that will some day bomb Tokio.