Improving Slowly Workplace Attitudes Toward Aids Victims Getting Better

A lot has changed since the AIDS epidemic began 15 years ago.

Talk to almost any human resource manager these days and you will hear about corporate policies that protect the privacy of HIV-positive employees, policies that guard against discrimination, policies that guarantee full medical coverage and provide flexible hours for those who require regular doctor’s visits.

But policies are not always enough. Paul A. Ross can attest to that.

Back in the late 1980s, Ross was a regional personnel manager at Digital Equipment Corp. when a group of employees refused to install computer equipment at a Boston hospitals. The reason: They were afraid of contracting AIDS.

“They did not want to work at any Boston hospitals where AIDS patients were being treated,” Ross recalled. “They thought they might contract HIV simply from being in a medical environment where some patients had the virus. They had no idea how AIDS is transmitted.”

Digital responded by developing a corporate-wide AIDS program, and it put Ross in charge. Ross, now worldwide manager of the HIV/AIDS program office at Digital, is also principal consultant at Paul A. Ross Associates, through which he offers AIDS training programs to corporate customers.

On a rainy day last month, he stood in front of a group of managers at BankBoston and listened with a bemused and knowing expression as they talked about their concerns.

Asked to say the first thing that came to mind when they heard the word “AIDS,” participants suggested: careless, promiscuous, gay, drug user, death and dying.

“Listen to what is being said here,” said Ross, striding down an aisle. “Aren’t judgments being made? Aren’t fingers being pointed: ‘If you weren’t sleeping around, you wouldn’t have AIDS,’ or ‘If he has AIDS, he must be gay or she must be a drug user.”’ Heads nodded.

A few people smiled. One man wondered whether the virus could be transmitted by a kiss. Asked another: “Is it more expensive to treat AIDS than cancer?”

Literature provided by Ross says AIDS cannot be transmitted through everyday contact. That means you can’t get it from a kiss. You can’t get it from a toilet seat. You can’t get it from sharing a straw, or from donating blood.

You can get AIDS from sexual intercourse with an infected partner, from sharing drug needles with an infected person or from being born to an infected mother. As for the cost of treatment, the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta says AIDS treatment is no more expensive than cancer or other terminal conditions. The average cost of a year of medical care for an AIDS patient is about $250,000 - comparable to the cost of cancer treatment.

BankBoston has been aggressive on the education front. Since 1979, it has tracked the number of cases of full-blown AIDS in locations where it has employees, raised money for the AIDS Pledge Walk, put a range of policies in place and, this year, purchased 22,000 holiday greeting cards from the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts - a gesture that will likely double the nonprofit organization’s card sales this year.

But despite all of the information on AIDS these days, stereotypes persist. And although most big companies seem to be more tolerant, stories about job applicants who have been turned down for positions or fired after disclosure are still common.

Last month, an entertainer reached a $90,000 settlement with a cruise line and an employment agency after losing a job because his blood had tested positive for the AIDS virus. The entertainer had applied for work and was given a signed contract for a job aboard Dolphin Cruise Line in Miami. Then, the results from a blood test came back.

“That young man had the worst day of his life,” Thomas Elfers, an attorney for the US Employment Opportunity Commission, told the Associated Press. “He took the test, found out he was HIVpositive and, in the terrible emotional aftermath of that, telephoned to ask if he was still going to have a job. The answer was ‘no.”’

At BankBoston, a 46-year-old professional from another firm spoke of the anxiety he felt when he revealed his secret to a manager. Diagnosed in the late 1980s, James said he had been determined to keep his health status private. Then, four years later, his T-cell count, a measurement of the white blood cells that fight off infections, became dangerously low, leading to a debilitating round of illnesses that made it impossible for him to work.

Fearing excessive absenteeism would affect his job, James walked into his supervisor’s office three years ago and announced he had developed AIDS. He was surprised - and heartened - by the response. “They really looked for ways to help me,” he said.