Selective recruitment of AS individuals as employees

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BBC news item

Positive step, or patronage?

I think it's awesome!
I'm sure maybe somebody with AS who manages on their own can get on some high horse and claim that it's demeaning or something, but for somebody who hasn't been able to handle a steady job, you end up being pretty demeaned on disability, if you're lucky enough to get it, and then what possibilities are there? Most people who "manage" to get off disability end up doing what, working at walmart till they kill themselves? Aspies aren't particularly suited to most unskilled labor, and the system is not set up to deal with that.
If these people can keep a succeed with their business by employing aspies and actually using aspie talents, that's amazing. That's.. hope.

That sort of selective employment sounds sort of illegal, though...
"We don't hire normal people! Go away!"
I smell lawsuits... Kind of like strawberries.

Wired.com: recuiting autistics

That's in Denmark.

The same thing would likely not go over very well in America, with the whole "equal opportunity" thing.

this type of thing would be allowed in Canada.Our charter is done in a way whereby there is a clause that states that everyone is equal but disadvantaged groups take precedence over the majority.This means a company WILL be allowed to hire autistics only without any hassle, but if a company had a sign saying autistics are not allowed,that company would face stiff fines.

Except the thing is that most employers do only hire normal people. Not having an explicit, publicly available policy on it doesn't make it any less true. Lots of job descriptions say things about requiring great people skills. I mean, isn't the goal of this company to hire people who generally have a particularly difficult time finding employment, and do so in a way that the very things that make those people difficult to employ actually become assets?

It is quite legal. More than legal, customers and suppliers can claim support through dealing with you.

I have to deal with the autistic, no one else understands me.

Where they work alone and task directed, fixing computers, mopping floors, no one may ever notice. They are only disabled in mixing with other people.

Since the rise of Human Resources, which is run by very social people, we have been judged by social skills above all, for that is what HR has. If Tech was in charge of hiring it would be a very different world.

I am going into publishing, because I do not like the kind of people who filled the field, I am customer directed. Having a Degree in English is proof of a wasted life.

Publishing is all of the steps, from pre press and layout through printing and binding, with a strong concept of selling into existing markets. It is falling apart because HR hired people who would get along and could learn something about one subject.

The media is dying, for lack of autistic system overviews. Looking back to Ben Franklin, Samuel Clemens, H. L. Menken, I see autistic overviews of life, systems, and of the process of production.

Muffy, Kimmy, Todd, are cute and fun to be with, expert shoppers, have thousands of friends, are up on all the latest gossip, sports, TV, movies, music, and do not belong in Publishing.

J. J. Jaimison, Spiderman's day boss, is classic AS in a unfocused world. Up until thirty years ago this is what it took to run a business, or army. People socializing on company time were fired.

So I think we will make a comeback. From the older around here, Greentea, a few others, we worked and had no problem till thirty years ago. Ignore everyone, do your job, was all it took.

The problem is recent and self produced.

So as a conservative traditionalist, there are the job oriented, and the unemployed.

Those who built companies were not social, it starts with hired managment then spreads down through the ranks. Their goal becomes bleeding the stockholders and customers for every dime, and spending it on themselves. As the founders died, the next generation chose to live without working, the next are trust babies who have no idea what the company does, or any company, or how a flashlight works, and why they have no more money coming in.

Business is creative destruction, and that part has been done. Print got so poor that readership had no point. At the same time at least half of books are now self published, for the machines exist to bypass a failed industry. More titles, authors, but smaller press runs, print on demand, and smaller markets served, the majors looked to sell at least 100,000 copies, but books that sell 1,000 are more profitable.

They excluded all new writers, for they just wanted to go to cocktail parties with established stars.

Writing is a creative and timely art, they lost it, but it still exists.

There were more writers in print a hundred years ago, with small press runs.

They were not best sellers, but each voice did have a market, so the overall market was better served.

The world is coming back to our kind.

Actually, it IS LEGAL, its called affirmative action...or Section 15 (2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms




Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

In Canada, Employment Equity initiatives aren't directed towards specific groups, though.

For example, there are several different types of EE initiatives.

Clarification: In Canada, there are four categories that qualify: Women, Aboriginals, Visible Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities.

"Regular" competitions are open to everyone, and Employment Equity is considered only at the end-state selection process (when they've narrowed it down to the MOST qualified applicants, and they can't make up their mind).

"EE preference" competitions are open to everyone, but a non-EE applicant would only get the position(s) if there was a lack of EE candidates, or the EE candidates that applied were deemed "not qualified".

"EE initiative" competitions are only open to EE applicants, and in the event of there not being any qualified EE candidates, it would re-open as an EE preference or regular competition.

"Specific category EE initiative" competitions are intended for one specific category of EE. This is usually due to a significant deficit in people from that category.

However, while they CAN make a competition for a specific EE group, they can't go into any further detail than that.

For example, they can say "Aboriginal only". But they can't say "Cree only".

They can say "Visible Minority only", but not "Chinese only".

They can say "Person with Disability only", but not "Autistic only".

And even then, specific category EE competitions are very rare and typically aren't found anywhere besides the federal/provincial governments. EE preference/EE only typically aren't found outside of the various levels of government and crown corporations.

The question is: is it illegal in Denmark or the UK where they are expanding the business?

Also, weighing out benefits vs. harm is interesting. I'm actually unclear whether I support or oppose what they're doing at this point.

If everyone could get placement in the most difficult job they can handle, there would be plenty of openings in jobs which can be done by people with disabilities (that don't impact their capacity to do that job). But in an insecure economy people tend to hang onto the first decent job they get, and can't/don't take risks with that. Especially where benefits/pensions are involved. So you end up with many overqualified yet bored/unmotivated and incompetent workers just selling their time on earth for trinkets, and taking up space. The work environment can be very insidious and hostile to 'outsiders'.

I do think it's legality could be questioned in the UK. Wouldn't be surprised if that'd be so in Denmark.

In America the concept is called Sheltered Workshop. There is no equality to it, it can be narrow, and very defining, vaugely Autistic people we can get along with.

No one can force you to take a 300 pound Autie with rage problems.

The idea is not to get people off disability and then dump them, but to work at something in a shelterd workplace, with support. Some will go back home, some will enjoy the work, and some will just start their own company and dump you.

Goodwill Industries employs people that no one else would, and after a year of showing up for work, with coaching, becoming accustomed to working with others, most have gone on and gotten another job.

Before the fall of everything, when employment was tight, I was a Goodwill shopper, and as the employees did feel out of it, I spoke to them, got to know a few, and some of the other customers, there was a social aspect missing in other businesses.

People started disappering. When I asked, they got a job. After about three I discovered that another customer owned a printing company, got to know them at Goodwill, then made them a job offer.

Goodwill hires who they will, I have witnessed several meltdowns, people walking out, who were back at work a few days later. I have also witnessed a lot of customer support, remembering names, saying hello, to people who have been invisable.

I taught computer use and repair. What had been an alien thing they came to be good at using, and keeping in good order. Basic computer skills were a needed job skill, and the things I taught, how to run disk cleanup, defrag the drive, they later reported they had taught their next employer who had been paying when the computer did not run smoothly. They were good workers with up to date skills their employer could use.

We also put together systems for that single mother of three customer who had such nice kids.

Altogether, I would say hundreds were helped through that one Goodwill store. When the city flooded, that store got eight foot, was closed for a year, and they not only kept the payroll going, they gave out cash bonuses, and kept their people going for over a year. I still shop there.

After the flood there was nothing left. Goodwill trucked in clothing, household goods, from a thousand miles around. They made it possible for people to come back.

So the concept of something between the disabled for some reason, and those who have done well, provides a lot of good all around.