Integrate intellectually delayed into the real workforce
TheStar.com – Opinion/Editorials – It’s time to integrate more intellectually disabled people into the regular workforce.
Nov 08 2015. Editorial
It’s hard to believe, but as many as 35,000 intellectually delayed people across the country may be working in jobs where they are paid minimum amounts, as little as 46 cents an hour, in sheltered workshops, co-ops, or social enterprises.
There has to be a better way. These programs, in which people can toil for decades in isolated shops, should be a thing of the past. As much as possible, their workers should be integrated into paying jobs in the community at large.
Sound impossible? A generation ago, developmentally delayed or physically handicapped students were segregated in institutions. Now they attend school alongside other students and no one would think of isolating them again.
There is no fundamental reason that adults shouldn’t be treated in a similar way.
Consider a tale of two lifestyles of intellectually delayed people told last week by the Star’s Moira Welsh.
Kelly Taylor has Down syndrome. But for 20 years she worked for a law firm in London, Ont., keeping the board room tidy, making coffee and delivering papers before she retired. She also worked as a community volunteer, got married and bought a condo.
Meanwhile, Kris McCormick, who is developmentally delayed, is paid 46 cents an hour to make caskets at a sheltered workshop in Sarnia. His mother thinks he should be paid minimum wage and has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario saying his pay discriminates against people with disabilities.
They may be right. But agencies that run sheltered workshops can’t afford to pay minimum wage. Companies in the mainstream workforce can.
That’s why organizations such as the Canadian Association for Community Living are springing up across the country to put the emphasis on helping the intellectually delayed or challenged get out of isolated workshops and into paying jobs in the community.
To be sure, some may need ongoing supportive programs. But Community Living estimates about 75 per cent of the intellectually challenged could be employed in the community. Indeed, some sheltered workshop owners agree they have had people working for them for more than 15 years who are “highly employable.”
And there are plenty of companies with progressive-minded owners willing to hire people who turn out to be exceptional employees. Entrepreneur Mark Wafer has hired 122 people with intellectual disabilities over the last 20 years at his Tim Hortons outlets in Scarborough. National companies such as Costco and Home Depot are working with the Canadian Association for Community Living’s Ready, Willing and Able initiative to hire the intellectually delayed in their stores.
There are also measures that governments can take to turn attitudes around.
Last year, for example, the late Jim Flaherty included $26.4 million over four years in his last federal budget to help expand training programs connecting Canadians with intellectual disabilities and employers. The new Liberal government should expand on those efforts.
The provincial government has also restructured the Ontario Disability Support Program to ensure the intellectually challenged don’t stay in workshop programs because they’re afraid of losing support payments.
In the end, the answer is not to try and turn sheltered workshops into “real” jobs. It’s getting “real” jobs for many more intellectually delayed people so they can be integrated into the community.
It’s time to give them a chance. They have more than proven they are up to it.
< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2015/11/08/integrate-intellectually-delayed-into-the-real-workforce-editorial.html >
Tags: disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2015 at 9:23 am and is filed under Inclusion Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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I feel it is necessary for the Liberal government to take action in regards to training programs to connect those with intellectual disabilities and their employers. Trudeau’s promise of $750 M for training programs in order to undo Harpers damage to underrepresented groups in the workforce when he cut back on Labour Market Agreements may be what Canada needs to change employers attitudes in their workplace setting. The inequality that exists in our labour markets for marginalized groups like those with disabilities is extreme when looking at how underrepresented they are in larger community jobs. The wages given in sheltered workshops where many intellectually disabled work is discriminating to perfectly capable employees. Seeing as those with intellectual disabilities have slowly become less institutionalized, and with our newly elected Liberal government, maybe theres a fighting chance that they can integrate more into community living and into the labour force.