d

December 12, 2007

By JOEL DRESANG
jdresang@journalsentinel.com

President Bush's nominee for assistant secretary of labor doesn't want employers to hire people with disabilities to be charitable but to improve their businesses.

Whether plugging high-turnover entry-level jobs or addressing hard-to-fill professional talent shortages, employers need to consider more candidates with disabilities, Neil Romano said in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

"What's important is people with disabilities have an awful lot to contribute. People with disabilities are part of the diversity of the country, and they are a dynamic part of the diversity of the country," Romano said in an interview.

Romano said he was in Wisconsin as president of America's Strength Foundation Inc., a Maryland-based nonprofit campaign promoting the benefits of employing people with disabilities. Last week, Bush asked the Senate to confirm Romano's appointment as assistant secretary of labor in charge of disability employment policy.

A public relations consultant, Romano said he has been traveling around the country the past two years making a film about workers with disabilities. He said more employers are realizing the benefits of such employees, who historically have been overlooked.

"What's happening is we're seeing a major paradigm shift here in America," Romano said after a lunch with Mayor Tom Barrett and a handful of work-force development leaders.

"We see that people with disabilities are being perceived for what they can bring to the table, for their value. I mean, they have inherent value as human beings, but they're seen as valuable contributors to society, valuable contributors to the work force."

Hiring more people with disabilities could help lift employment in Milwaukee, said state Rep. Josh Zepnick (D-Milwaukee), who accompanied Romano as a member of the governor's work-force council. A report released today by the Center for Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee shows the City of Milwaukee continues to rank low among the largest cities in job growth among residents.

"There are clearly any number of areas of Milwaukee, including higher poverty areas, where people have disabilities and other kinds of challenges that are factoring into their options for jobs," Zepnick said. "I will guarantee you that those are issues."