Russian Disabled

From Moscow Times:

"Blind Lawmaker Praises New Law Requiring Firms to Hire the Disabled

Oleg Smolin, a State Duma deputy with the Communist Party, praised a law that entered into force Monday and requires companies to hire disabled people or face fines of up to 10,000 rubles ($330)."We supported this legislation because it looks like a first step forward," Smolin, who is blind, told The Moscow Times.  The amendments, published on the Kremlin's website Monday, introduce fines for business owners who refuse to employ people with disabilities or fail to create a quota system that earmarks a certain percentage of jobs for them. The legislation concerns companies with 100 or more employees and requires them to provide 2 to 4 percent of their jobs to people with disabilities. The fines for noncompliance range from 5,000 to 10,000 rubles. Asked whether the fines are too small to make a difference, Smolin said the amount reflected a compromise between the government and organizations that work with disabled people.  He acknowledged, however, that nongovernmental organizations had sought stricter measures to encourage employment of the disabled. One of them, which was ultimately rejected, would have required companies to pay into a special fund to create workspaces for the disabled. Federal legislation passed in 2004 requires companies with more than 30 employees to fill a certain percentage of their positions with disabled people, should qualified candidates with disabilities apply. The law was amended in 2005 to increase the worker threshold from 30 to 100. The latest law introduces the fines. The decision to establish fines appears to be aimed at forcing companies to be more socially responsible, in a country where 3.5 million people with disabilities, or 84 percent of all disabled Russians capable of working, are unemployed, according to government figures.

 ^ Like in other countries having laws that protect the disabled are only effective if they are enforced. There are many laws regarding the disabled in the United States and many have been around for decades and yet organizations, companies, etc are allowed to find loop holes and continue to discriminate against the disabled. Hopefully, this new Russian law will be enforced, but having experienced  first-hand how the majority of Russians treat and think about the disabled (most see the disabled as getting what they deserve and many consider everyone with a disability to be mentally unstable) I doubt it will do much to actually help the disabled. ^

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/blind-lawmaker-praises-new-law-requiring-firms-to-hire-the-disabled/476056.html