Crippled Child Highlights From The Crippled Child, June, 1942. The Physically Handicapped on the Industrial Warfront by WILLIAM B. TOWNS SIXTEEN WORKERS are needed on the production lines to equip and supply one soldier on the battlefront, according to a recent government press release. Shortages of man power in vital industries makes it necessary for the Nation to think of the efficient mobilization of the additional workers needed in war plants. The physically disabled, constituting nearly one third of the country's unemployed,will be an important source of labor supply for the all-out war effort. Eight out of every ten seriously handicapped men and women registered by the Placement Bureau of the Society for Crippled Children in Cleveland, Ohio, have been aided to find useful jobs in industry. These figures indicate what can be accomplished through a realistic approach to the problems of the disabled job seeker, implemented by an understanding of the community resources available to meet his needs. In the Fall of 1940, a number of representative leaders headed by Frederick T. McGuire, Jr., President of the Society, mapped out a special placement program to serve disabled men and women in Greater Cleveland. Intended primarily as a demonstration project, the Placement Bureau was established to act as a clearing house for jobs for the handicapped and to serve as a liaison agency between the disabled job seeker and the industrial employer. Because of the limited resources of the Society it was recommended that registration would be restricted to those persons with a serious physical impairment; and, by working with these individuals on an intensive basis, to prove to industry what can be accomplished through the selective hiring of disabled men and and women. The Society hoped to convince concerns in this area that the pre-employment physical exainination, which so often had disqualified even persons with relatively minor handicaps, could be used as an intelligent guide in the effective utilization of the handicapped on jobs where the disability would not interfere with 100 per cent job efficiency. We first attempted to lessen the obstacles that confronted the handicapped job seeker. Number One problem it seemed was the frequent lack of valid work experience, which is the ususal basis for the selection of new employees. So often disabled men or women in their twenties had been unable to secure any employment during the Depression years. Then there were the older men and women, many of whom had been unemployed for eight or ten years; while others had lost jobs due to an injury or illness, which prevented them from returning to their previous work. Frequently the handicapped job seeker required a complete physical examination in order to establish a knowledge of his general health as well as the specific work limitations created by his disability. Distinction must be made in dealing with industry between the individual in good general health but with a permanent disability, and those with a chronic illness who can not be properly regarded as being ready for industrial activity. THE SOCIETY for Crippled Children initiated a plan for administering standard aptitude tests to evaluate the potentialities of the disabled job seeker who was lacking in work experience. This testing program established under the direction of our psychologist, Arthur T. Orner, provided an effective means of securing information about the registrant. Intelligence, manual ability, hand-arm speed, muscular coordination, mechanical knowledge, finger dexterity are all basic factors in determining job possibilities. Employment managers were asked to study the relationship of these factors to exact work requirements of jobs in their plants and offices. Visits to industrial concerns enabled the Society to get a clear picture of the physical and mental requirements of a wide variety of jobs, so that this testing material could be properly correlated with the specific needs of industry. Employment managers evinced a great interest in this undertaking, and as they studied results which indicated outstanding capacities of disabled registrants they began to think more and more of how certain types of disabled workers, through selective hiring, could be placed on jobs requiring the skills brought out by our tests. THE CASE of John Millard was a good example of this new understanding. John, a man in his thirties, had not been able to find a job in industry for eight years because no concern seemed interested in hiring a man with two artificial legs. Our tests revealed good manual ability, average intelligence, and excellent coordination. His general health was good, his appliances were in good condition, and the medical examiner approved him for any type of sedentary work. We recommended him to an employer who had an opening in the assembly department. John was immediately hired, and has proved to be an efficient workman. The concern was so well satisfied with his work that five other handicapped persons have been added to this department. To John this was more than an opportunity to show he was capable of holding a regular job earning more than $50 a week. It meant that he was once again a useful member of Society and that his wife and six children would no longer be dependent upon public charity. A complete background of the health of each registrant is essential before any job placement plan car. 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. Recently we were given the opportunity to use the Wage Earner Tests, developed by Professor Joseph Kopas, of Fenn College. These tests validated by a three-year experimental period are routinely given to all persons seeking work at fifteen large concerns in Greater Cleveland with a total personnel of more than 60,000 employees. These concerns are using these tests in a creative personnel program to analyze, develop and use human potentialities in an efficient manner. One of these tests is used to determine mental alertness, to find out if an individul is acquainted with mechanical terms and is capable of learning how to operate a machine easily aand quickly. A second test is a measure of the background of the job seeker in mathematics and science. This helps to determine his ability for reading routine tickets, setting instruments, and making simple arithmetic calculations. Other tests discover interest in routine work, emotional stability, ambition and drive, and the ability to get along with other workers. Personnel Test X of the Wage Earner series is in the form of an upright wooden stand which has three rows of different size nuts and bolts. The person being tested is given a pair of wrenches and a screw-driver and instructed bow to loosen the the nuts and to reverse the bolts on the stand. Persons completing this test in less than five minutes can be regarded as excellent prospects for some type of mechanical work. The adoption of the WageEarner Tests by the Society for Crippled Children is another step in developing our services in line with recognized employment department practices. These yardstick tests provide an unusual opportunity of matching the abilities of handicapped registrants against the norms set up by the hiring concerns, permit the quick screening of our registrants, and the immediate forwarding of favorable test results to interested employers. The Future program of the Society for Crippled Children will be based on the continuance of this working relationship with industry in developing job opportunities for the handicapped. The Society has completed plans for sponsoring a series of employer conferences to which representatives of all services for the handicapped will participate. These will be patterned in part after the Man Salvage Clinics which have been conducted in Connecticut. The work testing program is now being extended to the school systems of the country, together with current job information for all types of disabled youth. Educators will be aided in working with young people through individual counselling and work testing as well as by career conferences sponsored by a group of successful industrial leaders. Those of us interested in work with the physically handicapped youth and adult realize the responsibilities created by this War. With employment opportunities becoming more numerous we have still greater challenge to afford effective guidance to the disabled, to carefully study their potentialities, and to fit their energies into such work as may contribute most to the War Effort.