Historically, people who work in companies or organizations that have a disability have experienced tremendous obstacles to join the workforce, and victims of work accidents affected by a disability have been forced into unemployment, with their negative sequelae of order. sociological, social and financial. Even today, the disabled are not proportionally represented in the active population, nor even in the countries that enjoy the most progressive legislation in the field of civil rights and promotion of employment, despite the efforts being made at the international level to improve your situation.
Importantly, there is now a greater awareness of the rights and needs of disabled workers, and a clearer idea of disability management. At the same time, they have partnered to claim their rights and integration in all aspects of social life, including the working population. Better informed companies recognize the need to treat workers with disabilities fairly and have become aware of the need to protect health in the workplace.
Similarly, in Venezuela, according to calculations by the World Health Organization (WHO), (1991) there are 3.2 million people who suffer from physical, motor or sensory disabilities. That is why public institutions such as the National Council for the Integration of Persons (CONAPI) and the Foundation for the Development of Special Education (FDEE), among others, promote the dissemination of State policies aimed at allowing the preparation of people with disabilities, to exploit their potential.
Therefore, we talk about the Law for Persons with Disabilities (2007), which in Article 1 states:
The provisions of this Law are of public order and are intended to regulate the means and mechanisms that guarantee the full development of people with disabilities fully and autonomously, according to their abilities, and achieve the integration of family life. and community, through their direct participation as full citizens and the solidarity participation of society and the family. (p. 1).
Due to this, all workers with disabilities of any kind have the right to perform functions that allow them better growth both personally and professionally and integration in the different environments in which they operate, regardless of their conditions.
Now, the World Health Organization (WHO), (1991: 64), defines disability as "the loss of secondary functional capacity, with deficit in an organ or function, which generates a disability in intellectual functioning and in the capacity to face the daily demands of the social environment ”. Furthermore, the United Nations approved on 20 December 1993 the "Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities", the purpose of which is to ensure that girls, boys, women and men with disabilities, as members of their respective companies, may have the same rights and obligations as others.
In this order of ideas, according to the Law for Persons with Disabilities (2007), in its Article 5: it indicates that, the disability is:
The complex condition of the human being constituted by biopsychosocial factors, which evidence a temporary or permanent decrease or suppression, of some of its sensory, motor or intellectual capacities that may manifest in the absence of anomalies, defects, losses or difficulties in perceiving, moving without support, seeing or hearing, communicating with others or joining educational or work activities, in the family with the community, which limit the exercise of law, social participation and the enjoyment of a good quality of life. (p. 4).
Notably, as society has become aware of disability, considering that it affects a significant number of people, it perceives the need to make changes in their environment, in such a way that it promotes the opportunity to show them how far they can go., motivating them to promote new thoughts, values and beliefs, which will strengthen this insertion in other spaces such as recreation, education and work, among others.
For this reason, workers with disabilities do not constitute a homogeneous group. They may have a physical disability, a visual or hearing impairment, an intellectual disability, or a serious mental disorder. They may suffer from a congenital disability, either acquired during childhood or adolescence, or later during higher education or active life. Disability may have practically no influence on the ability to work and participate in society or, on the contrary, it can have a significant impact, requiring considerable support and help, with multiple variations between the two situations. The social context is also important, while in some societies people with disabilities are not considered fit for employment, in others they are valuable members of the workforce.
It is understood that, for disabled people who want to be included in the world of work, gender is an important element that influences their employment opportunities. Regardless of their professional skills, disabled women often have a more difficult time finding paid employment than women in general and disabled men.
From the point of view of disability management in the workplace. International Labor Organization ILO (Project) Geneva, (2001: 3), by disabled person is understood as: “any person whose chances of obtaining and keeping suitable employment and of progressing in it are substantially reduced due to a character deficiency duly recognized physical or mental ”.
In this sense, for various reasons, many disabled people have traditionally been subject to socioeconomic isolation. However, there has been a slow but steady decline in the policy of segregation of the disabled, and in the belief that the disabled require care, compassion and charity. The disabled are increasingly demanding their right not to be excluded from workplaces and to be treated in a spirit of integration and on an equal footing with non-disabled people, as well as their right to actively participate in the economic life of the country.
According to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2009), in article 27:
The States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to work, on an equal basis with others; This includes the right to an opportunity to earn a living through freely chosen or accepted work in a market and work environment that is open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities. States Parties shall safeguard and promote the exercise of the right to work, including for persons who acquire a disability during employment, by taking appropriate measures, including the enactment of legislation. (p. 28).
Likewise, the disabled must be fully integrated into employment, since it is economically profitable for them that, instead of depending on social assistance, they are allowed to engage in a paid activity to the maximum extent of their possibilities.
The disabled must fully enter the world of work and, therefore, the whole of national life, because this is ethically correct. In this sense, it is necessary to bear in mind the observations of Despouy L., Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Organizations (UN), who, in his report to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (1991: 123), stated that “ the treatment of the disabled reveals the deepest nature of a society and highlights the cultural values that underpin it. ”
Despouy L. (1991), mentions that:
The disabled are human beings, as much or more human than the others. Their daily effort to overcome the barriers and the discriminatory treatment they are often subjected to imprint on them some special personality traits, among which stand out integrity, perseverance and a profound attitude of understanding in the face of misunderstanding and intolerance. However, this last consideration should not forget the fact that, as subjects of rights, disabled people fully enjoy the legal capacity inherent in the condition of human person. In summary, the disabled are people like us, who have the right to live with and like us. (p. 123).
Taking into account the organizational culture and its relationship with disability, the issues raised by Despouy point to the existence of negative social attitudes and stereotypes that constitute an important barrier to achieving more equitable treatment in the workplace. for disabled employees. Among them is the fear of the high cost of adapting workplaces for people with disabilities, or that they are not productive. Another important aspect is that people who receive vocational training or who work in the company of a disabled worker feel uncomfortable in her presence.
In addition, there are other reluctances associated with the alleged weakness or illness of the disabled and their possible effects on the aptitude that they demonstrate to follow a vocational training program or to keep a job such as lack of motivation as an axis in the change of conduct of those people involved in dealing with a disabled person.
Indeed, as the Disability Advisory Council of the Canadian Province of Ontario (1990: 78) has shown: “Assumptions regarding the needs of the disabled are often based on certain ideas about what a person cannot do. Thus, disability becomes the hallmark of the person as a whole, rather than an aspect of it ”. Therefore, disability is perceived as a generalized state and is usually associated with the idea of incompetence, which generates or gives way to discrimination.
Consequently, an employee with a disability can be a victim of discrimination inside and outside the workplace, which is why Hahn (1984) highlighted the apparent contradiction between the deep sympathy that the disabled cause and the fact that, collectively, they are the object of discriminatory attitudes more pronounced than any other minority recognized as such. This is because they tend to have physical characteristics and behavioral patterns that segregate them from the rest of the population.
However, were it not for these identifiable physical differences, disabled workers would not be subject to the same stereotypes, stigma, bias, prejudice, discrimination and segregation that all minority groups suffer. On the other hand, when these traits are accompanied by a negative social stamp, the effects of discrimination are magnified. Hahn (1984) also ensures that there is a direct relationship between the degree of discrimination a person experiences and the visibility of her disability.
Therefore, the key to ensuring that disabled workers are treated equally at work and in society is to reduce and eliminate negative attitudes and stereotypes that generate discriminatory behaviors, as well as to implement programs and practices that conform to the their specific personal needs.
It should be added that the International Labor Conference adopted a definition of discrimination that has been included in the Convention on Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation, (1958) (No. 111). According to this agreement, discrimination is understood as:
"Any distinction, exclusion or preference based on race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, national descent or social origin, which has the effect of altering equality of opportunity or treatment in employment and occupation"; "Any other distinction, exclusion or preference that has the effect of nullifying or altering equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation, which may be specified by the member concerned, after consultation with representative organizations of employers and workers, when such organizations exist, and with other appropriate organisms. ”(p. 145).
In the same way, Abella RS has explained this principle in a highly descriptive way in her report (Canada Royal Commission) (1984: 54), observing the following: “In the past it was thought that equality implied only the same and that treating all People as equals implied giving them the same treatment. Now we know that treating everyone in the same way can be an attack on the notion of equality ”.
Importantly, the recommendation of the International Labor Organization (ILO), (2001: 42) on vocational rehabilitation and employment of disabled people (No. 168), “workers' organizations should adopt a policy aimed at promoting training and the proper employment of disabled people, on an equal footing with other workers. ”
Therefore, this article examines the problem of disability in the workplace from the perspective of the rights and obligations of workers in promoting the integration of the disabled in the workplace. Therefore, it is also advocated that workers' organizations participate in the formulation of national policies, cooperate with professionals and organizations specialized in rehabilitation, and promote the integration and professional rehabilitation of disabled workers.
Not to mention, the importance of awareness within work environments when there is the presence of active employees who have some type of disability, and who want to function and adapt as one more worker with equal opportunities for improvement, is for Therefore, awareness-raising plays an important role in the development of research, since it allows institutions or companies that will receive or receive these people with different living conditions, to put into practice a better equitable treatment of the disabled.
On the other hand, it is important to generate an awareness phase that allows the knowledge that the employer and workers must follow within the work environment, to facilitate the inclusion process, impacting on the development of the individual as a useful human being to the company and the society. Awareness; according to Abella (1984.112), it is the "awareness and influence on a person to reconsider and perceive the value and importance of something taking into account the equality of conditions." Therefore, it can be concluded that through awareness-raising, it seeks to motivate workers to self-fulfill as people in all aspects of the professional field and also with regard to the reconciliation of work, personal and equal opportunities for men. and women
It is important to highlight the role that motivation plays in the development of sensitization from the social affective point of view, due to the deep relationship with human behavior, as Maslow establishes in his Theory of the Hierarchy of Needs of Abraham Maslow (1943 -1954), and Herzberg's Theory of Job Satisfaction (1957), where it is mentioned that it represents the behaviors and attitudes that guide the satisfaction of fundamental needs that characterize all human beings within social relations in the workplace, through of the experiences lived with teamwork.
In conclusion, to raise the awareness of workers with or without disabilities, we must begin by motivating all those individuals regardless of their physical condition, and in this way satisfy each of their needs within social relationships, to achieve equality of conditions within an organization, and thus avoid sometimes encountering workers with disabilities who fear failure and be discriminated against. Lack of awareness can turn out to be a factor that directly affects work motivation and with it the organizational culture.
That is why, in a healthy work environment, the company and workers must ensure equality, quality of work, health and safety, and fair treatment of all workers. They, together with companies, are obliged to collaborate in the maintenance of health and safety and, if an injury or disability occurs, they have the right and the obligation to try to reduce the effects on people and in the workplace. Although companies and workers have different points of view, the association will allow them to achieve the objective of protecting health, safety and equity at work.
However, today within some companies specifically in the workplace, it is observed that in many cases workers with disabilities are affected by indifference from their colleagues, or watched by their bosses due to the importance of The activity that is being carried out is not to the liking of what is required of them, as is the case of the Food Marketing Company in the Customer Service Department in Carabobo State where workers with disabilities work.
Therefore, in some cases coworkers ignored what is indicated by the laws, rules and regulations that protect workers with disabilities, which generates little receptivity on the part of them, and in some cases discriminating against them, posing as beings incapable of carrying out any activity that is in accordance with their physical and mental conditions, which like all deserve to be taken into account socially and occupationally.
