Wise to adopt equal opportunities policy

I REFER to the letter “Lower salary for worker with disability” ( The Star, March 13). The writer is indeed right in requesting that he/she should be paid the same salary as the employee who does the same kind of work but is not suffering from a disability.

Once an employer has made the decision to employ a candidate for a vacancy that exists in the company, the new employee is entitled to the full salary allotted for the position.

Any discrimination by disability, gender, race, experience or qualifications becomes redundant and can be said to be unjust, unjustified, against the human rights of the person, and possibly even against the law.

An employer retains the priority to set the salary range for his workers and also to award the position to whomsoever he wills, but once he has employed a person, he should not use any items of differentiation in that person as an excuse to pay a lower salary. Doing so would be highly detrimental to the performance of both the employees and the company.

In future, we will certainly see more disabled people entering the job market, and therefore it would be wise for companies to prepare themselves for the fair employment of disabled people.

Malaysia is usually prompt in ratifying any convention or law that protects the human rights of the individual but is weak in the follow-up and implementation of such laws.

For the well-being and prosperity of both the citizens and the country at large, this cannot be allowed to continue.

The Government must be better at keeping its engagements and the promises it made to the rakyat.

In a recent interview with Astro Awani, Dr Victor Pineda, an American activist and disability rights advocate, said there are one billion disabled people in the world, with 55% of them living in towns, and 80% are in the developing world. He also said that almost everyone will be struck by a disability if they live long enough.

In view of the above, Dr Pineda, who is also disabled himself, has been advocating for years on making cities more accessible and friendlier for the disabled from the planning stage.

Companies should follow suit and prepare themselves to be more accessible to the disabled. The word “accessible” is interesting because it means “make things easy”. And I think that perfectly healthy employees would also benefit from high accessibility since it would help them maintain their good health longer.

Years ago, an acquaintance told me, “Everyone makes their contribution. Someone will give more time, another will make more physical effort, still another will provide more knowledge, some will have more experience to give, and there will be some who will only be able to offer a smile, hope and prayers.”

I must say that this is one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever told me, and it is also true.

Indeed, it would be very difficult for an employer to identify the individual contribution of each employee. The success of a company is usually a team effort, and for this reason it is wise for an employer to reward all employees equally and satisfactorily.