Employment and recruitment of disabled people in the media Congress on Media and Disability Athens, 13 – 14 June 2003-06-04 Dear colleagues and colleague I hope, I may call you this way, since I assume that we all have the same common goal, to improve the situation of people with disabilities in the media – be it in their representation, as a spectator or as an employee. First I would like to introduce myself: For more than a decade I have been working editor at the ZDF responsible for a series, which covers the everyday life of people with disabilities called “Menschen” (people) - a short magazine on the early evening program Saturdays. We already discussed the Programs in detail yesterday. Today I would like to briefly summarize, how the employment outlook for people with disabilities presents themselves at the ZDF. This summary is based on research in connection with the topic “New possibilities of employment”, which we repeatedly covered in the past year in our series and on data from the representation for people with severe disabilities at the ZDF. Before I review the concrete situation of employment and reemployment of people with disabilities at ZDF, I’d like to tell you about the general condition: According to the social legislation Lawbook IX employers in Germany At least 5% of the workforce in a company must be severely disabled. This Quota is limited till the end of 2003 and will have to be increase to 6 %, if the target is not reached to lower the number of unemployed people with severely disabilities by around 25 %. If this ratio falls sort of the present 5 % mark, a compensatory tax must be paid. The money flows into integration measures. The compensatory tax has to be paid per month in correlation to the number of vacancy. with a Quota between 3 and 5 % 105 euro. with a Quota between 2 and 3 % 180 euro and. with a Quota of less than 2 % 260 euro. In the year 2001 3.8 percent of private and public workforce were severely disabled. At present the ZDF does not reach the desired 5%. 180 out of 3600 employed by the ZDF are severely disabled this makes a quota of 4,7 percent. A few years ago it was at 6% The reasons being that last year it was still possible for people with severely disabilities to retirement earlier with 60, the early retirement of many coworkers in light of personnel reduction (in the past years the ZDF had to cut 600 jobs), in addition the more restrictive evaluation of the concerned department. Meaning that it is now more difficult to be recognized as a person with more than 50% of disability and hence be categorized as a person with severe disabilities. As usually, most of the severely disabled coworkers employed by the ZDF have acquired their disability in the course of their life by illness or accident. Thus they are predominantly older coworkers who remain in most cases at their present job, if necessary technical or other assistance can be rendered. Of course there are also young coworkers under those, which become severely disabled during their time of employment at the ZDF. They likewise usually attend to their past activity: Is it e.g.. Editor, as sport reporters, as Cutter or as employees in the administrative and production management – these are the places were most severely disabled persons are to be found. I don’t want to go into further detail concerning this group since a agreement over the welfare service for severely disabled was already reached in 1979 on the basis of the severely disabilities law (Schwerbehindertengesetzes) of the Federal Republic between the personnel council and the ZDF, which grants them a high measure of protection and support: e.g.. adapted work places and flexible work times, aid, preferential consideration for higher evaluated job posts, basic and advanced training measures and the appointment of a representative and man of confidence for people with severe disabilities to protect their interest. This agreement, reached nearly a quarter century ago, regulates also that in case there are two applicants with the same personal and technical skill the severely disabled applicant should be taken an in the event of a negative decision a statement from the man of confidence is to be solicited. Because of this regulation more jobs were available to people with severe disabilities last year. E.g. in the context of a trainee measure a job for a women of extreme short stature was created. I would like to show you later how her working place looks. And now I would like to come to the important question, which efforts the ZDF makes to employ people with severe disabilities. Because fact is, it they are affected above average by unemployment. At present 144,300 out of 4.3 million unemployed people are people with severe disabilities in Germany. Even though in the past two years a program of the Federal Ministry of Labor undertook special efforts to create 50,000 new jobs for PWD. To hope that for qualified applications of external job seekers with severe disabilities with the small number of new posts currently is not enough. Equal opportunity begins with pupil- and working-internship as well as training. The ZDF puts special emphasize on that. (One out 15 trainees is a person with severe disabilities). An important link for the employment of people with disabilities at the ZDF is co-operation with the information and advisory board RH-Integra, in whose adviser board the ZDF is represented by its man of confidence for severely disabled people. In started 1994 first as pilot project, now RH-Integra is a personnel agency recognized by the labor office. Its goal is to bringing the right person to the right place. RH-Integra advises on the one hand persons with disabilities concerning their career chances and on the other hand it advises companies on all questions concerning the employment of people with disabilities. I.e. it shows how the creation of work-, training-, and intership-palces for this target group can be organized and made feasible and economically meaningfully. RH-Integra is thus a bridge between enterprises and employee. In practice the RH-Integra approach the ZDF with appropriate applicants or it already knows the requirements of the employer and makes appropriate suggestions. This procedure proved itself in the past years. Alone 2002 three applicants with severe disabilities were successfully hired. In 2001 the ZDF was for awarded the (“Landespreis für beispielhafte Beschäftigung von schwerbehinderten Menschen”) best practice for the employment of people with severe disabilities award form the Social Ministry of Rheiland-Pfalz among 93 applicants. An other initiative of the ZDF regarding the employment of people with severe disabilities is the cooperation with the “business forum for severely disabled coworkers and customers”. In this countrywide initiative, large companies such as Lufthansa, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Bank, etc.. have came together. They assume that a consistent corporate policy for severely disabled employees and customers is economically and politically meaningful. Thus it is about bringing the interests of the companies that employ people with severe disabilities and the interests of severely disabled customers together similarly as “Employers” Forum on Disability in Great Britain. Concrete activities of the business forum are e.g.: -The development of guidelines and strategies, in order to win severely disabled people as customers and coworkers. Also regarding “Diversity management”, meaning that through the variety of the complementary authority of individual coworkers the efficiency and productivity of an enterprise can be improved. - development of quality criteria for handling severely disabled customers - exchange of ”best practice” Examples, which can be adapted to different Companies - training of service staff, superiors, managers and teachers. Usually people with physical disabilities, are the beneficiaries of the above mentioned initiatives. Far more difficult is the employment of people with mental disabilities or learning disabilities at an employer with almost exclusively qualified and/or highly qualified jobs. Nevertheless there are also possibilities for this demographic group: Between the ZDF and a ”workshop for people with disabilities” a co-operation has exists for years. 1000 working hours are achieve every year by this workshop, 5 coworkers with learning disabilities do messenger services, etc.. Three coworkers from the workshop are now working in a tariff fixed employer-employee relationship with the ZDF. Their jobs are in film archives, the tape examination and the distribution of tapes. (to give out tapes) Before I show you our two examples, I would like to briefly introduce my team. Naturally the question arises in connection with a series, which places people with disabilities in its center: To what extent do the ones concerned participate themselves? One of our two editors is severely disabled. Among our many free coworkers there are again and again journalists with disabilities. Our series is presented however by a non-disabled moderator. A fact, which sometimes evokes criticism. Understandably, at first sight. But: in the past years we undertook appropriate efforts again and again, we castet different persons. Only in the past weeks we made two new attempts, unsuccessful. A broadcast on Saturday in the early evening program is a broadcast for the majority of spectators, it is not a minority program, this must be consider while taking all the other decisions. Our principle is to impose the same professional standards for everybody be it a disabled or non-disabled applicant. To procedure any other way would be discriminating in our view. Thank you very much for you attention, I now want you to show our film examples, but before let me introduce my colleague Rika Esser, she is working in the HA international affairs, afterwards you will get a brief overview of the work Re-Integrawould does.