Ads on hiring those with disabilities 'call it like it is'

Don't "dis" the disability, Utah employers are being told in a new statewide advertising campaign aimed at stopping discrimination against disabled job applicants.

The six-week campaign, launched Thursday by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., includes public service announcements scheduled to air on local radio stations that scold employers who have second thoughts about hiring a disabled worker.

"I know what you're thinking. Shame on you. That's discrimination," an announcer says in the spots after describing scenarios in which a better-qualified job candidate turns out to have a disability.

The spots have already generated controversy, according to Leslee Hintze, executive director of the organization responsible for the campaign, the Utah Governor's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.

"Those ads are not meant to be disrespectful to any one in any way, but they're calling it like it is," Hintze said during a media conference called to unveil the campaign, held at the Salt Lake corporate headquarters of CHG Healthcare Services.

Besides radio, the campaign will also be featured on billboards and in newspaper advertisements. The ads ask employers to "give all job candidates a fair shake and hire based on ability, not disability" and not "dis" ability, "dis" criminate or "dis" respect.

Huntsman said that while the state unemployment rate is at just 2.5 percent, it is "unacceptably high at 70 percent" among the disabled. "Everyone's been given different abilities. Everyone can make a contribution in the workplace."

Besides, the governor said, by 2010 there will be a shortage of some 10 million workers nationwide thanks to an aging population nearing retirement. "The future will require that everyone who wants to be part of the work force pitches in," he said.

Ken Duke, manager of a team of software engineers at CHG Healthcare, has vision loss as a result of retinitis pigmentosa. He requires special equipment to do his job such as a magnified computer screen, although many disabled workers don't.

"I don't consider myself having a disability," Duke said. "I consider myself being challenged." And everyone has challenges, he told an audience gathered for the media conference that included other disabled Utahns. "Some are visible, some are not."

Duke said he knows some disabled would-be members of the workforce "who are sitting at home, waiting to work" because they've dealt with the same discrimination the campaign addresses. "It's not a fair thing," Duke said. "There is discrimination out there."

The state came up with $20,000 for the campaign, Hintze said, and companies (including the Newspaper Agency Corp. that handles printing, circulation and advertising for the Deseret Morning News) are contributing space and airtime worth about $250,000.

She said her organization will request another $37,000 from the 2007 Legislature to continue the effort. Work is already under way on a new state Web site that will provide information about employing the disabled.

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E-mail: lisa@desnews.com