by Paul Edwards
Almost every week, there is an announcement of a new product or a revision of an existing one which makes technology more accessible to people who are blind. The funding to acquire the hardware and software that makes technology accessible is also getting easier to find. Indeed, many of our affiliates are working either alone or in concert with state agencies to create mechanisms to supply needed equipment to people who would otherwise not qualify under traditional VR rules. Certainly we have a long way to go before we can begin to be satisfied that all the blind people who can benefit from technology can get it. But every year, the proportion of people who are blind who have some kind of advanced technology is greater and we are clearly reaching a time when schools and post-secondary institutions recognize their obligation to make technological access available to students who are blind.
Unfortunately, equipment is not enough. Compliance with the law is not enough. We must also somehow translate inchoate hardware and software into tools that blind people can use and that is much harder. If there is a shortage of orientation and mobility instructors and rehabilitation teachers, then there is a virtual dearth of technology trainers. True, there are many people who are training blind people to use technology but, in my view, most of those who are out there providing training are not qualified to provide the kind of training blind people need. Of course this leads to two questions to which there are really no answers that are widely accepted. What kind of training do blind people need? And what makes a technology trainer qualified?
You will be glad to know that I don't propose to answer either of those questions here. I am content that we as an organization recognize that these two questions may be among the most important unanswered queries that face people who are blind today. We probably cannot even answer a much simpler question which is what kind of training do blind people get? The truth is there is nothing that comes close to a standardized notion of what access tech tools we need. Nor does there seem to be any consistency among states as to how much or indeed, whether they provide technology training. There is general agreement, however, that blind people who are not technologically competent are likely not to be employable a decade from now; there is remarkably little work being done by our field to devise approaches that will be consistent from state to state and that will keep us on top of this issue.
Too often, blind people receive just enough technology training to be dangerous — and not nearly enough to be competent. Time and time again, I hear the same story: “I got training before I went to work, but when they changed software, I lost my job because I couldn’t do the work.”
Often an employer is vilified for his heartless decision to update to a more modern and useful computer interface than he had before. But can we seriously argue against the right of a private company to provide its employees with the most sophisticated and effective tools that are available? Can we even suggest that a firm should wait till a program is proven to be accessible while the company’s competitors are already reaping the benefits that new systems offer? I think not. The first obligation of any business is to make money for its shareholders. That is their reason for existing.
Equally, it is unreasonable to expect an agency serving blind people to keep a case open just in case something goes wrong on the job. It is also unrealistic to expect that the case should be reopened because software no longer works. This is desirable, but by the time the paperwork gets done, chances are the job will have already been lost. Besides, software gets updated at least once a year. In fact, one or another of the programs an employee is expected to use is likely to change every quarter. A blind person who doesn’t have the capability to fix his or her own problem is very likely to become an unemployed casualty of change. It may well be that it is unrealistic to expect a blind person to be able to fix problems. So the question becomes what is the alternative? One answer is to create a whole new profession which we will call, for lack of better name, a technology access expediter. I know this terminology is very clumsy but I want us to recognize that this person needs to have been there yesterday to fix the problem. He or she may well represent the thread on which a job is hanging!
Who is to pay this person? Is it the company employing the blind person who should pay? Is it the blind person him- or herself? Should rehab create a generic position for someone who will work to keep consumers employed — regardless of whether or not their cases have been closed?
There is some logic to this last approach. If most blind people do not retain their jobs — and they don’t — and if many are fired for technology-related causes, it follows that those blind people who come afterward to the companies from which their blind predecessors were fired, will not receive anything like the kind of consideration that the pioneers did. Why expend dollars to make a job accessible for a blind person if he or she cannot perform the essential functions of the job for more than the first few months? Can rehab justify training blind people for these kinds of positions on the basis of creating potential for further jobs?
What role should access technology developers play? Much of the time, there is a gap of several months between the release of a new version of mainstream software and the release of a version of the access software that makes it usable. Should we as blind people accept this gap? Should we expect the manufacturers of mainstream software to make their products in ways that allow standard approaches to access to work? Do vendors who do not do this have a responsibility to make beta versions available to access tech makers so that their fixes can come out with the product that is released by the mainstream vendor? Most software CDs have lots of empty space. Could we persuade manufacturers to put access files right on their mainstream programs?
If we could take an approach that assured the cooperation of mainstream manufacturers and the access technology industry, we might not need a new profession. However, if we could make rain everywhere where there were deserts, droughts would disappear.
There is one possibility we have so far not considered and which is seldom, if ever, contemplated. It involves training a blind employee well enough so that he or she can solve any problems that arise. Obviously, this approach is superior to any of the others because it allows an employee to be the master or mistress of his or her own fate.
Perhaps, though, this solution is also unrealistic. I said earlier that I did not have all the answers. I know we must find them. Too many blind people are losing their jobs because they cannot keep up with the technology at their workplaces. Too many companies have been burned once by hiring a blind employee who could not function and swear they will not do it again. Too many agencies concern themselves only with quick closure and care little about the long-term capacity of employees to retain their jobs. Access technology makers release a new version once or at most twice a year and many do not put fixes for new mainstream software into a place where those who need them can get them. Lest anyone assume that I absolve employers let me quickly say that a blind employee usually discovers that the company is contemplating adopting new software when he/she comes to work in the morning and discovers that he/she can no longer do the job because the information he or she needs is no longer accessible.
ACB must and will take the lead in putting pressure on all of the entities discussed here because we must. Technology change is as inevitable as taxes, and somehow we must find ways to respond to it more quickly than we do now. Unless we can find solutions, there is a permanent reservation for blind folks in the land of the underclass. Let’s not go there! I know that, for many of you, my emphasis on technology falls little short of a manic fixation. Only time will prove whether it is as intrinsic to employment as I claim. If I am even remotely right to be concerned, the time for action is long past. We can’t afford to wait because the clock is ticking. So let us harness the capacity and competence of blind people and begin to deal with the conundrum of technological change. A good job is a horrible thing to lose!