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Proceedings of Transnational Meetings
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TAD ActivitiesProceedings of Transnational Meetings
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Presented by Marco Bongi at the Transnational Meeting in Turin, Italy, June 1998.
Introduction
The Italian legislation on the placement of persons with defective sight in gainful occupations has always been rather rigid. Attention has been primarily directed to the creation of sheltered workshops and subsequently to the provision of occupational registers for the purpose of compulsory placement. The National Labour for the Blind Board built up a substantial experience. It was established in the 1930's to run a series of plants in which partially sighted persons were employed in essentially manual operations, such as straw padding and stuffing, woodwork and wickerwork, binding etc. This approach was gradually abandoned after the second world war and there was a move towards the incentivisation of what where then emerging vocational sectors, such as telephone switchboard operating, followed later by massage and physiotherapy. The consequences of this poorly flexible arrangement are now beginning to be felt. The models used with respect to these sectors have proved inapplicable to new forms of employment with more pressing needs for mobility and flexibility. The main lines of the legislation currently in force are set out below.
Compulsory Employment
Three Acts deal with this subject, Law No. 482 of 2968 governs the compulsory employment of disabled civilians in general terms, whereas specific provisions concerning the partially sighted have been introduced by Law No. 113 of 1985 on switchboard operators and another law on massophysiotherapists and rehabilitation therapists. Law No. 482 requires all public and private employers of more than 40 persons to employ a 15% quota of disabled civilians. It has, however, proved very inappropriate to the particular needs of person with poor eyesight. Employers, in fact, are able to select such workers from particular lists in function of the type of activities required. This has undoubtedly penalised the blind and partially sighted very heavily by comparison with more self-reliant disabled persons able to perform essentially manual (cleaning, porterage, janitoring, etc.).
The blind and the partially sighted have thus retreated to the gilded cage of the occupations reserved for them alone by two special acts.
Switchboard operators and Massophysiotherapists
The structure of the two special laws governing these sectors is much the same. Their main provisions are as follows:
Hiring usually take place with reference to these lists. Candidates are free to choose from the jobs available. Direct passage from one job to another is usually forbidden except within public service.
Teaching and Public Appointments
Teaching, especially in the humanities, has always provided the partially sighted with the possibility of following a dignified and superior vocation. In previous decades, this work could readily be done, above all in institutes specialising in training the blind. Today, however, more than twenty years after the experimentation of full integration in ordinary schools, most sightless teachers have had to convert to the exercise of their profession in the several strata of the public education system.
The only facilitation currently provided is the allocation of qualified sightless teachers of 2% of posts filled by competitive examination. They also enjoy absolute precedence in the choice of where they wish to teach and in requests for transfers. Sightless primary school teachers can only be employed to support handicapped children. This limitation is obviously due to the unsuitability of poorly sighted persons for the teaching of reading and writing. Law No. 120 of 1990 grants the blind and partially sighted access to competitive examinations for managerial posts in the public service. In the 1970's, too, dozen or so officials from the National Labour for the Blind Board were appointed Vice-Prefects following its abolition.
Self -Employment and Co-operatives
This area has received little attention both in practice and in the Italian legislation. In the wake of the great experience built up by the Spanish ONCE, some rules facilitating the acquisition of street licences for the sale of national lottery tickets by the partially sighted were introduced in the 1950's. A subsequent Act (No. 121 of 1964) requires municipalities to set aside one of every three newsagent's licences for a blind person authorised to run the business with the assistance of a spouse or relative in the first degree. This law is still in force. Despite its very sound potential, however, it has rarely been applied, one reason being the lack of encouragement on the part of the traditional associations for the blind. Turning to co-operatives, mention must be made of Law No. 381 of 1991, which grants numerous tax benefits and contributions for the creation of social enterprises employing a certain number of disabled persons. This law, too, has seldom been resorted to in favour of the partially sighted, mainly because of the great ease with which work can be obtained for them through the compulsory employment provisions.
Social Security Facilitation's for the Partially Sighted
Law No. 120 of 1990 has extended to all sightless workers the one year notional social security contributions for every three years actually worked accorded to switchboard operators by Law No. 113 of 1985. This provision can be made the prelude to early retirement. Its benefits have been further enhanced by the non-reinclusion of sightless workers in the recent legislation raising the minimum pension age.
Both switchboard operating and massophysiotherapy, in fact, have been regarded as highly wearing activities. Law No. 104 of 1990 allows disabled persons recognised by a special commission as being in a serious condition to either take three days' paid leave per month or compatible wit the state of gravity of the handicap. Another provision still in force since the 1960's entitles legally blind workers to 15 days' paid leave a year for heliotherapy treatments.
Assistance in Finding a Job
The compulsory employment system describer above places the work of assistance prior to individual hiring in the hands of public offices. Provincial labour offices, in fact, are assigned a central role in this respect by Law No. 482 of 1968, No. 113 of 1985 and No. 120 of 1990. Private assistance on the part of the specialised agencies is virtually unknown in Italy and in any event confined to vocational areas not covered by the compulsory employment system. An interesting attempt in this connection has been made by the Association for the Vocational Development of Disabled Persons in Infomatics, whose headquarters are at the "F.Cavassa" Institute, Bologna. It has run courses for programmers every year since 1979. Through its direct contacts with leading industrial companies and the services sector it has succeeded in finding employment for more than 200 partially sighted persons devoid of any legislative coverage or protection. Similar, though less successful, experiments have been carried out in telemarketing, journalism, stenotyping, speech analysis etc.
Conclusion
It is clear from these brief notes that the Italian system is still based on principles whose keynote are charity and relief, and on models whose operation is heavily concentrated in the hands of the State. This unsatisfactory state of affairs is further compounded insufficiency of the criteria applied in recognition of a person as legally blind/ this being the sine qua non for enjoyment of all the benefits conferred by the legislation mentioned earlier. Only a person with a residual visual acuity of less than 1/10 can be classed as legally blind. Absolutely no account is taken of other important parameters, such as restriction of the visual field, night blindness, colour blindness, etc. The rigid reservation of vocational cages within which, thanks to the compulsory employment regulations, a placement of some kind can readily be found, has inevitably served to discourage the search for new forms of occupation consonant with the needs and potential of [persons with vision impairment. Very little, too, has been done to help the weak sighted. They have very often been compelled to feign a worse condition, or even aggravate their weakness artificially. There is thus an urgent need to rationalise the entire system and make it more flexible.
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