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NCIL Calls for Waxman to Investigate the Failure of the Federal Government to Employ People with DisabilitiesThe following letter was sent to Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. NCIL hopes that you will use this letter as background and talking points (more of which can be found at www.ncil.org/news/FederalEmployment.html) to contact Waxman’s office via mail, fax or telephone and urge the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to conduct a hearing. Please contact Deb Cotter at deb@ncil.org and let her know the response you receive! Let the chairman know that the SILC Congress, including more than 50 signatories, voted to support this initiative and will also be contacting the committee! NCIL recently called on the National Council on Disability to do a white paper on employment of people with disabilities in the federal government, as there has been a severe lack of research on the issue, excepting only a recent EEOC publication. NCIL has also asked the following letter to Congressman Henry Waxman’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee be placed in the public record. Please send all correspondence (Attention: Daniel Davis) to: The Honorable Henry Waxman, Chairman Committee on Oversight and Government Reform U.S. House of Representatives 2157 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Fax: (202) 226-3348 E-mail: Daniel.Davis@mail.house.gov Dear Chairman Waxman: We write on behalf of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) to ask you to conduct a hearing on the status of employment of people with disabilities in the federal government, which should include review of the Schedule A Hiring Authority. Schedule A enables hiring managers to hire qualified applicants with disabilities expeditiously through a non-competitive process. NCIL members remain extremely concerned that in a workforce of 2.6 million federal employees, fewer than 1 percent are people with “targeted” disabilities. NCIL does not accept this data as anything close to what we might describe as successful employment statistics for the United States. If the federal government were to carry out the mandate of the Rehabilitation Act and hire qualified people with disabilities, it could serve as a model employer to states and private sectors and help end decades of stagnant employment rates, which perpetuate painful economic consequences for people with disabilities. In conducting this hearing, we urge your committee to review and analyze the employment of people with targeted disabilities in the federal workforce, with detailed focus on use of the Schedule A Hiring Authority. It is important to provide an overall assessment of the federal government’s compliance with Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act, with the objective to enhance the recruitment, hiring, placement and advancement opportunities for people with disabilities “by each department, agency and instrumentality in the executive branch of government.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reports that among cabinet-level agencies, the Department of the Treasury has the most employees with targeted disabilities and that Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the State Department are rated as the agencies that employ the least number of people with targeted disabilities. The Department of State has trailed all cabinet-level agencies since 2004. The hearing could:
Individuals with disabilities who have been denied employment with the federal government, despite their education and experience, would provide valuable and practical testimony about the barriers that prevent them from obtaining federal employment. As noted in our NCIL Fact Sheet on Schedule A, most federal managers are either unaware of or do not appropriately use this critical tool, which has the potential to measurably increase the number of federal employees with disabilities. (www.ncil.org/news/ScheduleA.html). NCIL was pleased that the National Council on Disability (NCD) focused a recent report on “Empowerment for Americans with Disabilities: Breaking Barriers to Careers and Full Employment.” We were dismayed, however, that the federal workforce was not discussed in this report. Conducting a hearing on the recruitment, hiring, retention and advancement of people with targeted disabilities in the federal government would fill this serious omission in the NCD report. We urge you to contact EEOC Commissioner Christine M. Griffin, who created the initiative LEAD – Leadership for the Employment of Americans with Disabilities. LEAD focuses on the declining rate of employment of people with targeted disabilities in the federal government. Christine has extensive information and data about current employment rates and expert ideas on how the federal government, working with its partners, can work to improve the current situation. NCIL members and staff are also available as resources to you and your committee staff to help prepare for said hearing. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. For further information, background and assistance, please contact NCIL Policy Analyst Deb Cotter by e-mail or phone: deb@ncil.org or phone (202) 207-0334. Sincerely, John Lancaster, Executive Director Kelly Buckland, President CC: Rep. Tom Davis, Ranking Member *******************************
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