Encore Senator Tom Harkin: 32nd Anniversary of the Signing of the ADA

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone and welcome to the show as we celebrate Disability Pride Month. In the United States. Oh, I'm so excited that it's Disability Pride Month. And like, I'm going to do my normal beginning things, but I got to tell you, I am so excited that I have Senator Tom Harkin as my guest. I cannot tell you how excited I am. But first, before I get him on, I want to thank all of my listeners not just in the United States but around the world. We have 17 countries from Australia to Saudi Arabia with listeners and China. We have 17 countries. It is awesome. And I want to say, if you are just that one person in your country, you're making a difference. Tell other people. Tell other people so we can get the news that people with disabilities count, people with disabilities have quality of life, and you know what I'm going to say, people with disabilities have the right to work. So, thank you, Richard Roberts from the U.S. State Department in Brazil, who I first met in South Korea, and then I went through the State Department with him to Okinawa, and now here he is in Brazil. I love him. He's wonderful. And Gangyong Cho in South Korea, you know I love you. I think about you all the time. Thank you for everything you did. And to Vinnie Mean in Kazakhstan. Oh, Vinnie Mean, we think of you all the time with what's going on in the world. But thank you for your commitment to people with disabilities. Cheryl Harris at the State Department. Cheryl, I am so thrilled that you're here. But, you know, I also worked with Nigeria, Libya, Tunisia. It's just I could not go there because of COVID whereas I went to the other countries, and I loved everyone I met, especially the disability rights leaders. And here we go, every show for over, I don't know, maybe 5 years or more, Here's my shout-out, Yoshiko Dart. You know I love you, Yoshiko. I have the shout-out on every show. And you know why? In addition to the fact that I love Yoshiko, to remind you of Justin Dart. Justin Dart. She is the wife of the late Justin Dart. And it is so upsetting to me that we in this country don't have in our history books a history of the disability rights community. So, I've got to make sure I at least remind you of Justin Dart. So, thank you, Highmark, for being our lead sponsor. You are such a great corporation. You are so wonderful, and you hire people, which is where the rubber meets the road, and what's most important to me, And now, here we come, here we come with Senator Thomas Harkin, my friend, and may I say, one of the greatest disability rights leaders behind the Americans with Disabilities Act, and has never stopped fighting the fight, which we'll be talking about his institute in a little bit. But Senator Harkin, welcome.

Joyce, it is so nice to hear your voice and to be with you, if not in person, which I've always wanted to, but to be on your show. And again, thanks for that global tour you just took us on. Wow, all the things that you're doing here and globally to get people interested in, in not just disability pride, but in what I am focused on— that's employment, getting people jobs. Bender Consulting, that's what you do. You get people jobs, and I really appreciate what you do.

Thank you.

As I said, we both know, Senator Harkin, that's what it's all about. But we have listeners all around the world, as I mentioned to you, from Nigeria to Tunisia and Libya. Libya, that country has listeners of the show. So for those of you that sadly have not met you or know your story. And as we celebrate this Disability Pride Month, would you mind sharing your story, like how you grew up with a deaf brother, you know, how he was treated, your nephew, what happened to him, and then how that led you, you know, into public service?

You know me well, you know kind of my story. I had an older brother who became deaf at age 5 through spinal meningitis, and he was totally deaf, and he was taken away from our home and our small community, sent across the state to the— to a state school for the, as they said, the deaf and the dumb. And I remember my brother telling me once, I may be deaf, but I'm not dumb. But that's the way they talked in those days. And I just saw how he was just, you know, where he was treated not like a normal person. He wanted to do certain things in life and he was always told he couldn't do them. But he had a force of personality, and he did, but they were always trying to limit his horizons about what he could do. And he spent his life breaking those, and much to my pride. But still, he just had to always struggle to even get things like a driver's license so he could drive, to get a decent job with decent wages. It was just one thing after another. And then after that, my nephew Kelly was injured in the military and became quadriplegic. And then that opened my eyes to the problems of mobility. He couldn't even go to a restaurant. He couldn't go out anywhere. He couldn't go across the street with his wheelchair. I guess I'd never thought about that before, but here was a bright young man. He's now, he's what, 21, almost 22 years old, and a full life ahead of him, but he just simply can't walk. And. And yet he couldn't get his wheelchair to go anywhere because of the barriers. So that really got me interested and involved in working on a disability rights bill, a civil rights bill on disability.

Well, also, would you mind telling that story, Senator Harkin, about when your brother had that job and did not miss work.

My brother, well, when he went to the Iowa School for the Deaf, when he graduated, when they in high school, they said he could be 3 things. He could be a baker, a shoecobbler, or a printer's assistant. Well, he didn't want to be any of those, so they said, okay, you're going to be a baker. So he became a baker. He didn't like it, but one day a businessman who came to know him in the bakery, offered him a job in his factory, uh, running a very complex machine. And, and, and as this man, Mr. Delavan, told me later, I did this out of the goodness of my heart. But it turned out that Frank became their best employee. He made fewer mistakes, showed up for work on time, very productive worker, and So I was in the military and I came home for Christmas, and Frank, my brother, had been working for this company for 10 years. Now mind you, this is in Iowa. You know, we have bad winters and blizzards and snow and things like that. Well, I came home for Christmas. He wasn't married. He never got married. I wasn't married. And he asked me to go to the Christmas party with him that the company had. And so I did. Mr. got up to thank everybody, wish everybody a Merry Christmas, and he called Frank to the front of the room, to the stage, and he told everyone there— there's now where there's like 400 and some people there— I want you to know that Frank came to work here 10 years ago, and in 10 years, in 10 years, he never missed one day of work and was never late once. And always performed all of his jobs exceptionally well, and he gave Frank a really nice gold watch. But imagine, he didn't miss one day of work and never showed up late, even during those Iowa winters.

And I will say, you're not going to find anyone— I mean, people that do that, people with disabilities do that because no one gives them a chance, and when they do, They realize that employment is a virtue. So, I always tell people, no, it's not that they're superhuman. It's that they've been left out. And if you've been left out, then when you finally get a chance to work, you're not going to lose that opportunity. They're so appreciative.

Well, Joyce, as you know, we've had studies now that have shown that companies that hire people with disabilities to do competitive integrated employment, I mean, not just not makeshift work, but regular jobs, they do better than companies that don't hire people with disabilities for the very reason you just stated.

That's right. Companies that hire people with disabilities, we now have data, are more profitable than companies that do not hire people with disabilities. And that's, that's the reality. That's why you're missing out if you're not hiring people with disabilities. There is an untapped labor pool of people who want to work. And Senator Harkin has been talking about this for years and still is. But Senator Harkin, this is Disability Pride Month. And I wanted to know when you first entered the fight to see the ADA signed, and then if you don't mind, would you also share how you gave that testimony at Senate?

I'm sorry, I missed that last part of your question. What was the last part?

How you did your presentation at the Senate when you stood up to talk about getting the ADA passed?

Oh, yes. Well, I started when I was in the House of Representatives in the '70s. I just worked on issues about deafness, about getting the the institutes going, the Closed Captioning Institute, the closed caption TV. And then I went to the Senate, and about the time I went to the Senate, the disability community in America, led by people like Justin Dart and Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts and all these wonderful people, they were really moving strongly towards pushing for a broad civil rights bill. And then, so in the Senate, the first person to introduce the disability bill was not me, it was Lowell Weicker, Senator Weicker from Connecticut. And I was his chief co-sponsor. And in the House, it was Tony Coelho, and I forget who his chief co-sponsor was right now. But then Lowell Weicker lost his reelection. And then Tony Coelho had to leave the House for other— some other spurious reasons. So then when I came back, I picked it up and rewrote the Americans with Disabilities Act. And then that was in 1988 and '89. And then we got it passed in the Senate in 1989, and then in the House in the spring of 1990. And then And of course, as you know, Joyce Bender, it was signed into law on July 26th, 1990. So this is the 32nd anniversary this year of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So I became the chief sponsor and I got it through the Senate, through my committee, through my subcommittee, the Disability Policy Subcommittee. And now we've had 32 years and I think it's helped change the face of America much for the better. Now, you're talking about when I, when I brought the bill to the floor of the Senate, a very— you can see this on YouTube, by the way— I gave my speech in sign language. It was very funny because, you know, we have court reporters that take down what you say. Well, they didn't know what I was saying. And poor Senator Kerry, he was sitting in the chair and he didn't know what to do either because no one had ever done that. But I did it so that my brother Frank would know what I was doing. So after I gave my speech in sign language, I then came back and spoke and then did it and spoke in English. But it remains, remains one of the, one of the kind of, uh, which I say, uh, uh, often told stories in the United States.

I would say, I, yeah, I would say it's historic. And I actually signed at the Smithsonian Institute of History. But if you all have not seen this, you know to go to YouTube when Senator Tom Harkin spoke in sign language when he brought this to the floor of Senate. I know Bobby Silverstein was there with you, but I am sure, I'm sure that you shocked the senators with that. But that just— I just think that is riveting. I think that is such, such a great thing that you did. But so we got it passed, but I wanted to ask you, uh, how, how hard was it to get it passed?

How hard was it?

Yeah, to get people to join to get it passed?

Well, actually, we got it through the Senate in pretty good shape, and that was in September of 1989. The problem is it got bogged down in the House in the fall of 1989 and the winter of 1990— yeah, in 1990— and we just couldn't get it out of the House. Different people were working on it, but by that time Tony Coelho was not in the House, even though he was trying to work it from the outside. And I still claim that the, the, the probably one of the things that got it yanked out of the, the House was what we called the Capitol Crawl. This was a day in March of 1990 when ADAPT, uh, with people like Bob Kafka, God bless him. They, they rolled about, I think, 12 or 15 wheelchairs up to the Capitol steps, and they had alerted the, the TV cameras and stuff that there was going to be a demonstration. And so they rolled up the Capitol steps, they fell out of their wheelchairs and crawled up the Capitol steps because that's the only way they could get into the Capitol. And that got on the evening news, got all over the country, and that just sort of focused so much attention on it that we were able then to get it out of the respective committees in the House and get it passed, which I think it was passed in the House early May, I think it was, in 1990. And then we went to conference with them, and then the President, as I said, signed it into law on July 26th. So, What we did in the Senate, the toughest part was getting the drafting done from the initial bill that was first introduced back in '87 or '88, and to get all of the disability groups on board. I have to be honest with you that there came a point in 1989 when it looked like we weren't going to get anywhere because the various disability groups couldn't agree on the exact language. And so I— this is another story I tell— so I called together all these disability groups to my hearing room in the, in the Senate office building, the Dirksen Building. I had a big hearing room I called them all together. It was late in the day, and I said, look, we want to get this bill done. We want to get it going. We've worked hard on it now for a couple of years, and, uh, and, uh, I need you. I need you. If you don't— if you can't agree on it, I'm going to drop it. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to drop it. So I said, look, I'm going to leave for about an hour. I'm going to leave Bobby Silverstein here in charge, and I'm going to come back in about an hour or so. And if you, if you agree on the language, then we're ready to go. If you don't, well, then that'll be the end of it. So, so I left. I left Bobby there. And by gosh, within an hour or so, faced with the fact that this whole thing could die, they then all signed on to it. And that's when we started to move it.

Wow, that was smart of you. I mean, what a good move that was, you know what I'm saying?

What, what's that, Joyce?

I said, I said that was a smart move on your part.

Well, yes, I just, I, I had to tell them that, you know, and well, would I have dropped it? Probably not, but I wanted them to think that I was going to drop it. And that I wasn't going to move it if they didn't agree. So yeah, I did a little forceful speaking, I might say, at that time. But, you know, I love these people. They were great, but they just couldn't all quite agree. But they did eventually, and we got a great bill. It didn't please everyone, but I think it moved the country forward.

What a great thing that was, Senator Harkin. So, what was that day like? How would you describe the day the ADA was signed?

It was a fantastic day. It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day. President George H.W. Bush had us down on the White House lawn. It was at that time, and it may still be, I don't know, the largest gathering on the White House lawn for a bill signing ever. And, uh, and again, I want to say one other thing here on your show, Joyce Bender. People always ask me what were some of the key things we had to get the bill passed. And I have to say one of the key things was we had the backing of the President of the United States, uh, President Bush, George H.W. Bush, never wavered. He was always strongly for it. Even though his chief of staff wasn't, but he was and he never gave up. He never wobbled on it and he was always in back of us. So that really helped. And so this day was a beautiful sunny day. Everyone's on the lawn, all of the groups that had fought so hard for this. And President Bush, I'll never forget him, but right before he signed it, he said, "Let the shameful wall of discrimination come Tumbling down. Uh, they're just— I even today I get goosebumps when I think about it. It was so, so fantastic. And, and people hugging and cheering, and, uh, it was, uh, and, and, and to have Justin Dart up there with the president was just, just, just amazing.

Yeah, I know. That his family has said that in his life, that was one of the most important things he ever did, signing the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a shame that we don't have that same bipartisanship today, but thank God we had it then. Thank God. So, Senator Harkin, so many great things have happened since that day, since the signing of the ADA, like accessibility, transportation, housing, curb cuts, captioning for the deaf, restrooms accessible. You can't ask someone, "What is your disability?" on an interview. So many things, except one needle has not moved, and that's employment. Now, why do you think that is?

Well, Joyce, you're right. That's the one thing that's bedeviled me. And, and when I retired from the Senate and I started the Harkin Institute at Drake University in Des Moines, we have an associate director for disability policy, and that's one of our big thrusts at the institute. I said, I just There's a lot of issues still confronting people with disabilities, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to focus on employment because, you know, there were 4 goals of the ADA, right? Full participation, equal opportunity, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Well, in the first 3, as you pointed out, we've made pretty good progress, uh, on all of those.. But on employment, by the time I retired, the needle hadn't moved hardly at all, and it still is lagging way behind. So I just wanted to focus on employment, like what you do, Joyce Bender Consulting, does. It's so important for people to have jobs. That's where you make friends. That's where you contribute to society a lot. It's— work is more than just a job to make money.. It's part of the social network also of America, of any country. And so it's so important that people begin to, and businesses begin to hire people with disabilities in employment, in competitive integrated employment. And so we're doing this globally with our summit conferences. We just had one in Belfast. We had representatives from 30 countries— over 600 people. And what we're trying to do is to get businesses, the private sector, globally to do a better job of hiring persons with disabilities. We're making progress, but it's not as fast as either you or I would like, or— and the disability community. But we need to— we just can't let down. We've got to keep pushing for employment.

Yes, we do. Now, tell us more about the Harkin Summit on International Disability Employment. How— where is that located, and what are some of the key issues? Is everything related to employment? Is everything global? Tell us about it so that our listeners will know what it is.

Well, you can go to our website, harkininstitute.org, and, and read about it. But it's, it's the— our, our global summit meetings. We have one every year, uh, usually in the fall, uh, and, uh, we started it in 2016, so this was the 7th one, even though the 2 previous ones to this year were virtual because of the pandemic, but they were still very well attended globally. Um, and so the, the, the whole theme behind what we do at these summits is we bring together private sector businesses, some government, some NGOs, non-governmental organizations, you know, like Federation of the Blind or the Deaf Association or Cerebral Palsy, those groups, from different countries, and we explore ways in which we can increase employment in competitive integrated employment in the private sector. And so we bring businesses in that can tell stories and show what they've done in hiring persons with disabilities and the successes they've had. And so we're networking all over. And then the last one we had was just last month in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And I think, as I said, we had 30 countries represented, over 600 people, and a number of— I forget how many private sector businesses we had. Uh, and then we, we break into groups and we have mentoring sessions for young people on mentoring them on how to seek employment, how to put their best foot forward, so to speak. And, and we have businesses meet with them, uh, and little bit by little bit we're getting businesses that are getting their HR, their human resources businesses to be more proactive in hiring persons with disabilities. But I've got to say, Joyce, the new thing that we started this year, and we published a white paper out of the Harkin Institute on this, and that is to get the investment community involved in, in this effort. Now what I mean by that is to get these big investors like Voya, who's done a very good job on this, you know, Blackstone, Fidelity, you know, they invest billions of dollars of our money, our pension funds and things like that, in companies. Well, if this investment community starts saying to a company, well, yeah, we'll put investments in your company, but we want to know what you're doing to hire persons with disabilities.. And that could be a factor in, in our support and making sure that you get funding from, from our, uh, from our, uh, private equity. So that just started this year, and quite frankly, Voya— V-O-Y-A— Voya Investment Firm has taken a lead in this, and, and they've just been wonderful. And now we're trying to get other investment firms onboard with the same program?

Well, you know what? I mean, we have to pull out all stops with these companies. And money certainly is important when it comes to decisions corporations make. And you know what? They're making a decision that helps the company. People with disabilities, it's a proven fact, increase productivity, have the longest, the best retention. But that is really great. When you, when you do this, Senator Harkin, are you talking about companies in the United States that have locations globally, or are you talking about companies in that country already or both?

Both, both, Joyce Bender. We're talking about obviously some U.S. companies that have facilities and plants in other countries, but we're also focusing just on companies, businesses that are indigenous to those countries. And quite frankly, we found like in just the last couple of summits that we've had, We found companies, for example, in places like Nigeria, in Malawi, South Africa, that are now coming forward and seeing that this is a whole untapped labor force for them. Now, there are some problems, don't get me wrong. There are some— people with disabilities out of work for less, you know, that old thing. But we're overcoming that, and we're doing some in the Middle East. So, yeah, both, both companies that are homegrown or have connections with companies here in the US or in Europe.

I think that is so exciting, and if you're going to take now the investment community to them, to let these companies know that this is serious, that you're serious about this.

That's absolutely right. And again, I, I thank VOYA for taking the lead in this, and they are now reaching out to other investment groups to say, you know, this is something we should do. Not just because it's sort of the right thing to do, but since we have these studies that show that businesses that employ people with disabilities do better, bottom line better, profit-making better than other companies. Well, since we're the investment firm, we ought to be telling these companies, you should do this so that your bottom line is better. And then we, you know, that's why we invest in you, so you'll grow and do better. So this whole— I had never, I never focused on the investment community before until a fellow who had worked at our institute, Bob Ludke, decided to look into this and wrote this white paper. And then armed with this study from Accenture, wow, now we can get I mean, really big, powerful investment firms involved in this. This could really be a game changer.

Yes, this could be. This could be a game changer. Your summit in Belfast, how did that go? What, what happened there in Belfast?

Yeah, well, as I said, we had 30 countries represented. We had young people from a lot of places in Africa, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. We didn't have any from— well, we just had a couple from Latin America. We haven't done that well in Latin America, but we've made some great inroads both in Europe and in Africa, quite frankly, interestingly enough. But Out of that summit now has come some connections between businesses and countries and taking the next step. Now, keep in mind, Joyce, that we also have on our side the CRPD, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and countries that have signed on to that should— are compelled to have policies to promote the employment of persons with disabilities. So that's kind of, that's helping a lot in other countries too.

And are you starting to see, as you look back at the other places you've been to, are you starting to see movement, you know, in employment? Are you starting to see changes?

Well, Joyce Bender, Yes, but it's not as quick as you or I would like, I can tell you that. But little bit by little bit, and it's interesting, like if you just get one or two companies that commit to this and they show what's happening, it spreads rapidly. Uh, so that's what I'm very hopeful on. Now, we've— as I said, we've been doing this for 7, only 7 years, and 2 of those were very virtual, so really about 5 years, but we've built up a great body of support internationally. And I think in the next— oh, and now with the investment community being on board, I think the next 5 years or so is going to see just a rapid explosion of companies globally hiring persons with disabilities. It's just right there, ready to go. So I'm very hopeful about that.

Well, that is wonderful. By the way, before I go any further, how do people contribute to the Harkin Institute?

Well, basically, we're nonpartisan. We're a policy do politics. We just do policy. Our 4 main divisions of the Institute, disability being the big one, and then we do labor and employment about jobs and issues, you know, dovetails with the disability division. Then we have, uh, promoting health and wellness and You can see how these are all kind of interacting now. And the last, security. How do we ensure that people, all people, including persons with disabilities, have a decent income in retirement for the rest of their lives? So those are the four major areas of the Institute, but we do other things too. But those are the four major ones. And if you're interested in contributing, God bless you, just go to harkeninstitute.org, and follow that, and you can find out how to contribute. It's, as I said, it's nonpartisan, it's all tax deductible, and we're not a very rich outfit, but we do a lot of good policy work. And I might just add, Joyce, on the 20th of August, we're dedicating our new building. That's all. Yeah, it's all been paid for. We raised the money, we got it all paid for. And when they started— when they decided to build the building, I said, okay, I'll lend up my name and support if on two conditions. One, it must be built only with union labor, and secondly, it has to be state-of-the-art accessible. For all persons with disabilities. And I believe today the, the building that we have are dedicating on the 20th of August called the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center, I think today may be the most accessible building in America for all persons with disabilities. And so you're invited to take a virtual tour of it on the website. And in fact, the architect who designed it is a person with a disability. And he put together a group, some blind, deaf, cerebral palsy, autistic, you name it, mobility impaired, Down syndrome, and say, what do you need in a building? So that you can access, not just physically access it, but you want to input information or learn something or study something or get information out. What do we need to have? And that's the building we have today, and it is fantastic.

Oh, I can't wait to come out and see it sometime. That is fantastic.

You've got to come out. You've got to come out to the Institute sometime, and we'll put something together. We'll get you out there.

All right, well, I just want to say again, if you're listening to the show, and of course, as you know, when you're listening, if you're thinking, oh my God, I wish, you know, my nephew, my friend, my parent, my partner, whomever it is, could hear this show, they can just go to Spotify and Disability Matters with Joyce Bender, and that podcast will come up, or go to voiceamerica.com or benderconsult.com, and then share this podcast after you hear it with another person. And I also want to say, this man, Senator Harkin, is so wonderful. He has dedicated his life to people with disabilities, so I don't care if it's $5 or if it's $1 million, which is even better. Go to Donate and donate to the Harkin Institute. Senator Harkin, what is the website?

It's basically just— you can just go to Harkin Institute, all one word, HarkinInstitute.org, and that'll take you right into the website and everything. Just HarkinInstitute.org, and you'll have a menu, and you can look at all the different things.

So, for all of you, and wow, I can't even think how many there are that love Senator Harkin the way the disability community does, as I said, I don't care how small it is, but you should make a donation. You should make a donation to the Harkin Institute. I want to tell you, Senator Harkin, you are just such a nice, loving, kind man. Did you get this from your family, or, you know, where did you get this?

Well, I don't know, Joyce. That's very kind of you to say those things. I don't know. It's just always been a part of who I am. I, I, I I, I don't know, you know, I, I, I have a hard time answering that because I don't know. It's just always been a part of me. I, I obviously I got sensitized to the issues of disability because of my brother Frank, because of my nephew Kelly, and I might add one other person, Danny Piper, whom I met back in the early '80s, a young man with Down syndrome, and, and he opened my eyes to the abilities of people with intellectual disabilities and what they can do in life. It's just amazing. And so as I progressed from being interested only in deafness, then interested in mobility impairment, then I got interested in— involved in intellectual disability, and then developmental disabilities, and then mental health disabilities. Wow, it has been a wonderful journey for me of learning and growing and becoming more sensitized to both the discrimination that is faced by persons with disabilities, but also the abilities and the inherent strength and courage of people with disabilities to never give up and to always fight for their rights. And so it's— for me, it's just been a wonderful association for the last almost 50 years of my life working with the disability community, both here in America and, and, and globally.

Well, I can tell you on behalf of people with disabilities, any of the disability leaders I know, current or past, people with disabilities from around the world, my own network, we love you. You are so loved by millions of people with disabilities. You are one of our greatest champions. So I just want you to know, I have no words to tell you how much people love you.

Well, Joyce, thank you. I'm giving you a hug over the phone, and I'm holding up my hand in the I love you sign from the— from American Sign Language. You know what that is.

I know what that is. Well, we do. We do.

I love you. Hope to see you very soon. Stay safe, and, uh, and, uh, we'll have to get you out for the for the— at the Institute for some event sometime. We'll get you out there.

Well, let me ask you this question: when is the next summit? Do you know when it is yet, the next summit, or where it will be?

Well, usually, uh, we try to have one overseas and then one back in the U.S., and then one overseas, one back in the U.S., but we sort of got out of kilter because of the pandemic. So next year in 2023, we're looking at a another summit in the fall of 2023. We are now going through some different invitations that we've had, uh, and looking about where we're going to have it. We don't have a place yet, but we're looking at, uh, about— there's about 3 or 4 different countries and places that have asked us to come and have a summit. Um, but we just, we haven't been able— we just got out of Belfast, and, and now we're— this summer we're dedicating the new building on August 20th, and then we're going to in earnest start figuring out where we're going to have our next summit. If you have any ideas or suggestions, Joyce, or if any of your listeners do, please let us know.

Sure, I do. Pittsburgh.

Well, that would be in 2024.

Okay, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We will be the host. I'm going to tell— you know, I'm going to tell Senator Casey, you better get on it so we can have it in Pennsylvania. So, Senator Harkin, is there a time of the year that you like? Is it the same time it was Uh, this year, is it around the same time every year, the summit?

Well, we try to have it in the fall. I don't know why that is, but some— we usually try to have it around November. We figure that's early enough before the holiday season, it's late enough in the year, uh, for travel. It— for some reason that seemed to work out, but We did Belfast because, I don't know why, for some reason they could only do it in June. And, um, so we said, okay, fine. So we did it in early June in Belfast. But we're trying to— we want to get back to have it in the fall if we can.

You know what, Senator Harkin, I'm going with the the State Department next year, earlier in the year, to Brazil. And it would be so great if it could be a country somewhere in South America, because you mentioned you haven't been able to make anything happen there.

We'd love to go to South America. We've had one country that has been pretty consistent at our summits, and they have that's one of the countries that has expressed a desire to have us there, and that is Ecuador.

Oh yeah, that would be great. Oh, that would be great.

Ecuador, they have a president with a disability. They have some state senators, senators there who have been to our conferences or summits, and so they've been very interested. But And that's just one of the ones that we're looking at right now, Ecuador. But anywhere, I mean, Brazil is obviously more centrally located.

Well, hey, wherever you can go, I know that it will be, uh, I know it'll be wonderful. So Senator Harkin, tell me two messages. First, what message do you have for companies listening to the show today?

My message to companies is just this: you will do your company, your workers, your community a great, uh, give them a great benefit if you go out and actively look for and hire persons with disabilities to be a part of your workforce. You will never regret it. You will As I said, your bottom line will be better, and your workers will be better. That, that's basically my, my message to companies. Don't overlook perhaps the greatest, most loyal, hardest-working group anywhere, and that is the group of persons with disabilities. And again, Joyce Bender, I have never asked a company to hire a person with a disability for a job for which that person is not qualified. All I'm asking companies is, you tell us the qualifications for a job. Believe me, there are people with disabilities out there that can do that. Maybe a minor, uh, adjustment in the workplace, maybe what we call a reasonable accommodation that costs a few dollars would enable that person to do that job for which that person is qualified. And that's basically my message to companies.

Yeah, we want paychecks, not pity. We want equal treatment, right, Senator Harkin?

That's right. No more pity. We want more paychecks.

That's right. And you know what gets me, to companies listening, We all know that in the United States right now, it's candidate market driven. I hear companies all the time saying, "I don't know where I'm going to get people. I don't know. They're so hard to find." I feel like I'm jumping up and down waving my arms saying, "We are here. We have people with disabilities that want to work.

We're here.

We're waiting." And for you to not include that group, I mean, you are not only doing the wrong thing, but you are making a huge mistake. You are. From— not from— I'm not saying this from even a philosophical reason. I'm saying from a business reason, for a return on investment, you should be hiring people with disabilities. And Senator Harkin, now there are many people with disabilities around the world listening to this show right now who are facing many obstacles trying to find employment. So what message do you have for them?

My message to persons with disabilities who want to work in competitive employment is to— first of all, I know there are obstacles. There's like many countries, transportation obstacles and things like that. I understand that, but you've got to get in the door, and you've got to exert a little bit more effort to make yourself known. Take pride in your disability. Be a proud person person. And don't take no for an answer. I mean, look, Joyce Bender, you and I, I'm sure both, I've been turned down for employment before I ever got elected. Uh, I, you know, a lot of times you think you want to do something, it's not quite the right job. Don't take no as something personal, or don't take no as something about your disability. Just Pick yourself up and go to the next door and just keep banging on those doors and make sure that you get in to see the human resources people and let them know what you want to do and what you're capable of doing. And also get the help and support of whatever agency that may be there, like, like Vocational Rehabilitation. Or Easter Seals or any groups like that. Heck, use them, uh, you know, use them and, and, and, and get them to help. There's nothing wrong with asking for a little help, right, Joyce? We all need help in our lives, no matter who you are.

No matter who you are. That is so right. That's why I always tell people, um, Helen Keller's saying, "Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. You should not be ashamed. You've got to be proud, disability pride, but you've got to go out there." It's not— no one's going to come to you knocking on your door saying, "Here's a job." You've got to go out there. You've got to go out. Well, Senator Harkin, what can I say other than I love you,, and it was such an honor to have you on as we celebrate Disability Pride Month.

Well, Joyce, thank you. It's wonderful being with you. I love you too. We've, we've worked together for so many years, and again, I just, I love what Bender Consulting is doing. Uh, we need Bender Consulting groups not only all over America but around the globe. That's what we need to do. We need Bender Consulting. Around the globe. So thank you, thank you for what you've done to make sure that persons with disabilities get employed.

Absolutely, Senator Harkin. You know what, we end every show with a quote, and today, get ready for this quote. The unemployment rate among Americans with disabilities who want to work and can work is over 60%. And that is a blot on our national character, said Senator Tom Harkin. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at VoiceAmerica.com. Talk to you next week, and in the words of Mary Brooker, always choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific Time and 2 PM Eastern Time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America variety channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com. Thanks again for listening to the preceding program, brought to you on the Voice America Variety Channel. For more information about our network and to check out additional