—_ mier Glen Clark. NIDMAR takes reins on IL by Rob Jankowicz better global environ- ment for workers with disabilities dawns on the horizon following an his- toric agreement between Canada’s National Institute of Dis- ability Management and Research (NIDMAR) and the International Labour oFvenizauen (ILO). Under the agreement, embodied in a memorandum of understanding signed May 15, 1998 in the rotunda of B.C.’s Parliament Buildings, NID- MAR is playing a major role in the ILO’s development of an interna- tional code of practices for disability management. NIDMAR, headquartered in Port, Alberni, B.C., has already collected examples of successful disability management programs from around the world and examined the stan- dards or best practices of each. From this, NIDMAR will draft occupational standards and opti- mum workplace models the ILO will use to develop the code of practices, which will serve as a guideline for the fair and equitable treatment of workers with disabilities around the world. It is expected the code will be approved by ILO members for dis- t hana in the year 2000. Speak- ing at the signing ceremony, ILO assistant director general Ali Taqi said the agreement signals a “first step in a vigorous new campaign towards equality of opportunity and treatment for people with disabili- ties.” He said, “Once the message gets out and people see what can be done and how, and what the benefits are, countries around the world will get on board.” etal The ILO is the United Nations oldest agency and the only one that s a holdover ate Ree of Nations, having been chartered in 1925. It has an annual budget of US $250 million. ; e The ILO has a tripartite govern- abour, business Canada has one b pe In May of last year, in the Rotunda of the B.C. legislature, the ILO’s Ali Taqi (front row middle) j NIDMAR was founded in 1994 in part by the Canadian labour move- ment, including in a major way the I.W.A., business and government. It is an education, training and research organization committed to reducing the human, social and eco- nomic costs of disability. In his office on the grounds of Port Alberni’s North Island College, NIDMAR executive director Wolf- gang Zimmermann says the ILO code of practices would, for the first time, “provide minimum guidelines that are value-based and oriented around certain principles, that put the interests of the worker first and foremost and recognize that there needs to be economic gain to the employer, that the process needs to be collaborative with the full part- nership of labour and business.” Zimmermann cites the need for such a code. A worker stranded at home with disabilities could suffer emotionally, falling prey to such maladies as drug dependencies or worse. Financially, he says, a lack of commitment to getting a worker back on the job creates a “stagger- ing” loss of personal income, amount- ing to hundreds of thousands of dol- lars even at maximum workers’ compensation rates. The effect on the public purse and corporate insur- ance premiums is just as pro- nounced. “There’s a mentality still that greater benefits will do the trick, but with so much pressure on the resources from which those benefits come, that’s not an option anymore. At the end of the day you need to focus on the ability, not the disabil- ity,” Zimmermann says. Neil Menard, I.W.A. CANADA First Vice-President and officer responsible for occupational health eal safety, concurs. “When you see the carnage and the injuries in our industry, you realize that disability management has to be a lifetime commitment. Too often it’s out of sight, out of mind. We forget about the mental and physical stability of a person sitting at home looking at walls and watching TV.” Menard says the I.W.A. supports the ILO code of practices just as it does NIDMAR. “The more that we can do, not only provincially and nationally but throughout the world, to get people back to active, meaningful employ- ment, the better,” he says. Zimmermann says the ILO agree- ment is a natural extension of work already done by the institute at home and abroad. “A part of NID- MAR’s constitution is the develop- ment of a best-practices workplace model, identifying what a best-prac- An ILO Code of Practices will put the interests of workers first and foremost while recognizing that there needs to an economic gain for the employer. tices disability management pro- gram looks like and developing occu- pational standards. The agreement with the ILO was an o; portunity for them and for us, it peas sense. The ILO-NIDMAR agreement traces its beginnings to a previous study the two agencies collaborated on. In an analysis of job retention and return-to-work strategies in nine countries, the aim was to iden- tify specie programs in each coun- try that might have transferable lessons for other countries. Zimmermann had the task of ana- lyzing enterprise strategies and studied reports related to workplace initiatives. At an October 1997 gath- ering of participating analysts in Lorxtdon, England, conversations between Zimmermann and ILO offi- cials planted the seed of an interna- tional code of practices for disability LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1999/11 Photo courtesy NIDMAR joined NIDMAR’s labour and business co-chairs Brian Payne of the CEP and Peter Lawrie, of MacMillan Bloedel. Looking from behind were federal Liberal Cabinet Minister Pierre Pettigrew and B.C. Pre- disability code management. At March 1998 meet- ings of the ILO in Geneva, Cana- dian Labour Congress executive >“ vice-president Jean*OlaudePer- rault, who is Canada’s labour dele- gate to the ILO, officially lent his support to the idea. Before two months had passed, the ILO’s Ali Taqi was in Victoria trading pens with NIDMAR’s labour and business co-chairs, Brian Payne of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union and Peter Lawrie of MacMillan Bloedel, while federal and provincial dignitaries looked on. Zimmermann hints at what might find its way into the NIDMAR con- tribution to the ILO code of prac- tices, which he expects to deliver to Geneva in the second quarter of 1999. “You have to take a hard look at programs that meet the interests of workers and employers. A key ele- ment is to have someone at the work site who has overall responsibility for return-to-work. Bigger outfits have a better chance of making this happen, so there has to be a broader public policy position to cover small companies that can’t support a full- time person. There has to be sup- port for a legislative framework that could support return-to-work. The American Disabilities Act is Rood example, as well as other anti- iscrimination and employment equity legislation.” If the ILO follows past practice, once it has its components in hand, including NIDMAR’s contribution, a small group of experts will develop a draft code of practices. The ILO will then convene a larger interna- tional committee of experts to pro- vide “input , direction, leletions and expansions,” Zimmermann says. “There is quite a defined practice according to ILO convention.” Once revisions are complete and voted through by ILO members, the code will be published as a finished document, and decision-makers around the world will have a mod- ern, comprehensive guideline for their disability management pro- grams.