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Show Handicapped Workers Week There was a time when people alluded to a one-armed paperhanger as a figure of speech describing an impossible feat. The comparison limps badly in today's world, however. Handicapped workers are performing all sorts of jobs despite all categories of disability-including a one-armed paperhanger in Texas whose work performance has caused one edge of our colorful language to fade. The Labor Department publishes a directory listing over 35,000 different job titles and it's a fairly safe bet that there's a handicapped person working in each of these positions. Hiring the handicapped has always been a social responsibility respon-sibility but is particularly important im-portant this week. October 3-9 is National Employ the Handicapped Han-dicapped Week, and has been localized by a declaration of State Employ the Handicapped Week. The national chairman of the committee on Employment of the Handicapped, Phillip dinger, said 3,234 handicapped persons have been rehabilitated and returned to employment status through vocational rehabilitation agencies. Handicapped persons nave a lot of friends both locally and nationally. One summer day in 1971, a young law student, Jeffery Friedman left his suburban home for downtown Cleveland. He tried to enter the County Administration building, but couldn't. He went to the Annex, then to the Health and Welfare Building, to the county jail and the court house. In each case entry was impossible. Friedman sued the commissioners com-missioners of Cuyahoga County. He felt his constitutional rights and those of other handicapped citizens were being violated. The lawsuit was later settled and the result is that all existing county-owned buildings and all future construction must have ramps for the handicapped. |