Employment and Disability: Issues, Innovations, and Opportunities, edited by Susanne Bruyère, Labor and Employment Relations Series, Illinois, USA, 2019. 346 pp., ISBN 978‐0‐913447‐18‐5, Price $34.95 paperback

Date01 December 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12539
Published date01 December 2020
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12539
58:4 December 2020 0007–1080 pp. 1039–1058
BOOK REVIEWS
Employment and Disability: Issues, Innovations, and Opportunities,editedby
Susanne Bruyère, Labor and Employment Relations Series, Illinois, USA, 2019.
346 pp., ISBN 978-0-913447-18-5, Price $34.95 paperback
There is an extensive literature on women’s employment, and not inconsiderable
literature on racial minorities’employment, but the employment of disabled persons is
the poor relation. Accordingly, this book, part of the USA’s Labor and Employment
Relations Association (LERA) series, is a welcome addition, as LERA’s previous
research on this topic was published 20 years ago.
This book, which takesthe form of a collection of papers edited by Susanne Bruyère,
focuses on the employment of disabled people in the USA, who are confronted
with a ‘metaphorical patchwork’ (p. 35) of laws, policies and supports that they
have to navigate. Against that background, the book drills down, giving the reader
detailed information based on large-scale surveys, with chapters on certain sectors
of employment: federal government, federal government contractors and the high-
tech industries; certain categories of disabled people: veterans, youths and those
in unions: and certain types of disability: mental illness and autism. In addition,
there are chapters on legal aspects of US disability law: harassment and reasonable
accommodation (adjustments).
The central message is dispiriting. In every chapter, the authors nd that disabled
people havelower rates of employment and/or lower pay than their non-disabledpeers.
For instance, although the degree choice of young people with or without disabilities
is similar, the authors nd that disabled people with degrees in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics(STEM) or related areas were as likely to be out of the labour
force as disabledpeople with degrees in other elds, even in high-tech industries where
there is considerable demand. Moreover, although the USA has special provisions
for veterans, disabled veterans face barriers to their employment that non-disabled
veterans do not face.
Many (but not all) of the chapters in this volume are based on complex and
extensive analysis. Chapter 3, for instance, analyses disability employment measures
in the federal workforce and among federal contractors, using the American
Community Survey data 2008–2016, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and
a 2011 survey of human resources professionals. It nds that federal employers
outperformed the private sector in the employment of disabled people and that
federal contractors were more likely than non- federal contractors actively to recruit
disabled persons. Moreover, centralized provision of accommodation (adjustments)
was associated with higher disability representation in the workforce. Nevertheless,
disabled federal employees rated their job satisfaction, opportunities for professional
development, supervisor relationships and fairness in reward lower than their
© 2020 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by JohnWiley & Sons Ltd.
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1040 British Journal of Industrial Relations
non-disabled comparators. The chapter concludes that data collection is essential to
measure the effectiveness of practices and that afrmative recruitment strategiesmake
a difference. This is a clear messagefor British policy makers.
Chapter 4 uses new US data based on one and half million employee observations
to examine trends in unionization, union wage effects and accommodation requests.
In a nutshell, unionized disabled workers in the USA fare better than non-unionized
disabledworkers. It nds,however,that disabled employees’ levelof union membership
declined more rapidly than that of non-disabled employees and that this decline was
not explained by other demographicor occupational factors. Instead, it was associated
with a lower likelihood of disabled workers being hired into union jobs; although if
hired, they were less likelyto be rst red. It also nds that the union wage premium for
disabledworkers was nearly 30 per cent compared to the union wagepremium of 24 per
cent for workers without disabilities. Nevertheless, disabled workers’ accommodation
requests in union settings were as likely to be granted as disabled workers’ requests in
non-union settings.
This chapter will provide a useful point of comparison for those researching
disability employment in unionized workplaces in the UK and/or other European
countries. In contrast, there are fewer possibilities for comparison in some of the
other chapters. For instance, British or European Union law, unlike American law,
does not have special provisions for veterans, including disabled veterans, the subject
of chapter 6. Similarly, chapter 5, which examines 73 charges brought by the US
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the scal years 2013–2014 that cited
harassment under the Americans with Disabilities Act, has limited read-across to
Britain. This is because the British denition of harassment (s.26 Equality Act, 2010)
is less restrictive than the American denition.
Unusually for an edited volume, most of the chapters (nine out of 14) have three
or four authors per chapter, with several contributing to more than one chapter. This
helps to build a common approach, sometimes lacking in edited volumes. Thus, Sarah
von Schrader contributes to three chapters and La Wanda Cook, Hannah Rudstam,
William Erikson and Matthew Saleh contribute to two chapters each. Moreover,
14 out of the 20 contributors are from Cornell University’s Yang-Tan Institute on
Employment and Disability.
Often, particularly in an edited collection, some chapters are stronger than others.
This reviewer wasless than impressed by two chapters tagged on at the end, which gave
global perspectives on disability employment and inevitably painted a broad-brush
picture, which lackednuance.
Also, she was less than impressed by the book’s seemingly uncritical acceptance of
the business case for the employment of disabled persons and the assumption that
it is in the employer’s interest to recruit and retrain disabled persons, even though
the business case concept has been contested. As a result, there are extensive good
practice recommendations foremployers in some chapters, particularly those with less
of an original research basis. For instance, chapter 8 on mental illness, essentially a
literature review, has six pages giving labour and employment relations practitioners
advice on organizational change. On the other hand, she was very impressed by the
intricate analysis of large data-sets in many chapters,where the information provided
will be a basis for tracking developments in the USA and advancing cross-national
comparison.
SUSAN CORBY
University of Greenwich
© 2020 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by JohnWiley & Sons Ltd.

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