No Restriction on Quality

Can a commercial print shop in an institution for people with disabilities operate successfully? The Center for Living and Working for the Physically Disabled (WBZ) in Reinach, Switzerland, demonstrates that it can.

At first glance, the pressroom is not any different from that of a typical print shop. It is bright, clean and orderly. On a five-color Speedmaster
SM 52, an organization's periodical with a run of 70,000 copies is being processed; a 40-year-old platen press is printing one-color, black Christmas cookie labels with prices and quantities for a large Swiss business group.

Skilled jobs not a token
Urs Kleiner started work here just a few weeks ago. Beforehand, the printer had been unemployed for four years - somewhat seldom in a country like Switzerland with a nearly full employment rate. The reason? Even though you can hardly tell by looking at him, Kleiner is disabled. Serious back trouble threw him off the professional track. That, although the 58 year old always wanted to work rather than sitting around at home idly. But who hires someone close to retirement age and physically not in the best condition to boot?

Thanks to the Center for Living and Working for the Physically Disabled (WBZ) in Reinach near Basel, he is now standing at a printing press again. The center, started as a foundation a good 30 years ago by people with physical disabilities, does not define itself as a typical facility for the handicapped. "Most of the employees here are not here for occupational therapy and therefore given token jobs," emphasizes Manager Stephan Zahn. "Instead, we support and call for skilled jobs for skilled employees with a physical disability. For people like Kleiner, for example. Earlier, he worked for private print shops with large formats where he often had to lift heavy leads and developed the problems with his back. The print shop in WBZ works exclusively in format 13.8 by 19.7 inches (35 × 50 centimeters), so everything is smaller and can be better wielded.

The center offers jobs to a total of 120 people with disabilities, and roughly 70 also live there. The employees are paid going rates, and their services are also subjected to the law of supply and demand on the free market. WBZ employees with physical disabilities administer data bases and prepare addresses for mailing campaigns, they carry out bookkeeping and do the taxes, they manage a public restaurant on the WBZ campus as well as a party service, and they print.

Print shop as job machine
37 people work in the graphic service center, not all of whom are disabled. "You won't find the classical paraplegic in a wheelchair at a printing press," Print Shop Director Bruno Planer says. "It's not possible either, alone for work safety reasons." While Planer would like to employ more physically disabled printers in his center, candidates with the appropriate qualifications are rare in Switzerland, "It's difficult here to find a disabled person with training as a printer."

Kleiner is therefore the only disabled person at the printing presses at the moment. In addition to him are two non-disabled employees and a temp. "We do generate jobs for disabled people both in prepress as well as in postpress in the print shop," Planer clarifies. Five disabled colleagues earn their livelihood in prepress and in postpress it is even almost 20.

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