


Short changed by discrimination

Stella Young Ramp Up 21 Jan 2014
Coins on open hand

What if you were paid so little that you still had to rely on welfare to survive? Credit: ABC Open South East NSW





But what if your job didn't pay you enough to enjoy those things? What if you were paid so little that you still had to rely on welfare to survive? What if you were paid, say, $1.79 an hour?

This is the actual hourly rate received by Tyson Duval-Comrie, a 25-year-old employee of an Australian Disability Enterprise (ADE) in Melbourne. Duval-Comrie has an intellectual disability and works at a packaging centre undertaking tasks such as placing sugar sticks in boxes and securing lids on herb containers.

In case you're confused about the terminology, Australian Disability Enterprises used to be called 'sheltered workshops'. We got rid of the crappy name but unfortunately the crappy system didn't follow. Many of these organisations employ people with intellectual disabilities full time.

So how can someone who is working full time in a legal business be paid as little as $1.79 an hour? Because of a little thing called the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool (BSWAT). Employees assessed using BSWAT are evaluated using a two-pronged approach based on productivity and competency.

The productivity component is pretty straightforward. Let's say the basic wage for a job like, oh I don't know, placing sugar sticks in boxes, was $10 per hour. (Minimum wage for non-disabled workers in Australia is actually $16.37 per hour, but rounding down makes the maths manageable for my non-maths brain). Let's say the person who was most productive at this job could pack 100 boxes per hour. And because of your disability, you're only able to pack 30 boxes in an hour. You would be paid, based on your relative productivity, $3 per hour.

Pro-rata systems like this actually exist in many places across the labour market, but the BSWAT takes this one step further by assessing an employee's competency. As a person with an intellectual disability, in this part of the assessment, you would be asked questions such as, "What are some other jobs that people do here?" or, "What should you do if you see something unsafe in the workplace?" Funnily enough, I recall answering similar questions in my online employee induction here at the ABC. Fortunately for me, a wrong answer (of which I'm sure I gave many) had no impact on my salary. In contrast, an incorrect or inadequate answer to one of these questions while being assessed using the BSWAT could see your $3 per hour reduced to something like $1.79 an hour.

In December 2012 the Federal Court ruled the BSWAT was discriminatory under the Disability Discrimination Act in the cases of two intellectually disabled men, Gordon Prior and Michael Nojin, who were employed in two different ADEs. The court decision only applied to these two individuals and their specific cases, which means other people with intellectual disabilities are still being paid wages decided by their assessment under a tool that is known to be unfair.

Last week the Government announced that intellectually disabled workers who could prove they had suffered economic loss while working under their BSWAT assessment in an ADE would be eligible for a one-off payment. However, claiming the payment would also exclude workers from taking legal action against the government. Law firm Maurice Blackburn is currently representing thousands of workers who have been underpaid, taking legal action to try and stop the Federal Government's plan to address the underpayments.

Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum. We need to look at this scheme and the very fact that sheltered workshops still exist in the context of an education system that offers extremely poor outcomes for disabled students. Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes has been known to talk about the fact that people with disabilities "carry the soft burden of low expectation". A friend of mine, who now has a PhD, told me that when he was still enrolled at special school in Victoria, students were driven to the local sheltered workshop (sorry, Australia Disability Enterprise) and told that's where they would work when they were older. No "what do you want to be when you grow up?" conversations for these kids.

One of the arguments I often hear in support of the abysmally low wages paid to people with intellectual disabilities is that it actually serves the employee, as it means they can still claim the DSP. Meanwhile, Governments continually threaten to 'crack down' on DSP recipients, making it harder to access payments, but still maintain a system that keeps people with disabilities in need of the pension. And all the while, we're drowning in media coverage that paints people with disabilities as bludgers and drains on the system.

Speaking in support of ADEs last week on Radio Adelaide, Assistant Minister for Social Services Mitch Fifield said that these organisations afford people with intellectual disabilities "the dignity of work." I'd agree with Minister Fifield; dignity is an important part of work. Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers. It is, however, much easier to feel dignified when you're paid more than token pocket money that might not even cover your transport costs for the working week.

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