Decent work is for everyone – including People with Disabilities

Christy Lynch

Marion Wilkinson

Comprehensive Employment Strategy - Policy background• Sectoral Plan 2006• NDA paper – A Strategy of Engagement• Work of interdepartmental group +

consultative forum on employment of pwd• Transfer of functions • National Disability Strategy Implementation

Plan – pwd have access to jobs• Review of Adult Day Services – New

Directions

UN Convention on DisabilityArticle 27

• Right to work, on an equal basis with others

• Effective access to vocational guidance, placement, and training

• Promote employment through affirmative action and other measures

• Provide reasonable accommodation at work

• Promote work experience in open labour market

Low participation in work

• People with disabilities are only half as likely to have a job

• Strong link between education and employment

• Strong link between no job and poverty

• 60% of people with disabilities not working are restricted in type or amount of work they can do

• But 15% of those who have difficulty working are in a job

Employment rates 2011aged 20 to 64

66%

33% 34%

43%

18% 17%23% 23%

32%

14%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

No disab Pwd Blind Deaf Physical ID Learning M Health Ill Difficultyworking

Vision - draft

• People with disabilities can get a job and enjoy a rewarding career

Focus• Lifecycle focus – from birth, through

school, into adult life. • People with disability from birth +

those with acquired disabilities

Values 1-

• People with disabilities are enabled to have jobs, earn a living and make a contribution

• People with disabilities are supported to maximise their potential

• The focus is on a person’s capacity not their incapacity

• The strategy covers people across the spectrum of disability

Values 2 –

• It pays to have a job

• People with disabilities get the supports they need to work

• Support systems that cross departmental or agency boundaries are mutually coherent and provide a joined-up system and joined-up pathways

• Actions in this Strategy are built into the mainstream national employment strategy

Draft strategic priorities

• SP1 Build skills, capacity and independence

• SP2 Provide bridges and supports into work

• SP3 Make work pay

• SP4 Promote job retention and re-entry to work

• SP5 Provide co-ordinated and seamless support

• SP6 Engage employers

ICTU - Specific actions

• Suggestions from today, – Top priorities under the which strategic priority?

• What is the role that trade unions can play?

• Specific actions under the return to work/ job retention priority?

• Recruitment of people with disabilities in the public service – post embargo? ideas