Disabled people's employment bill repealed
16 April 2007The disability sector is facing changes with the passing of legislation that will see disabled people’s employment brought into compliance with New Zealand and international human rights norms.
The Disabled Persons Employment Promotion [DPEP] (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill repeals an Act (the DPEP Act) that has long been regarded by many disabled people as “utterly improper and an abuse of human rights”, according to a submission by the Disabled Person’s Assembly (DPA).
The repeal will mean that all sheltered workshops will have to pay everyone they employ at least the minimum wage, unless an individual worker has an exemption, says Minister for Disability Issues Ruth Dyson. “It will also mean that all people who work in sheltered workshops will have access to holiday and sick leave entitlements,” Dyson says.
To counter concerns about the continuing financial viability of sheltered workshops, the ministry has put in place a system of individual minimum wage exemption permits for workers who are “significantly and demonstrably limited” in their work.
DPA says this means disabled workers can be subject to minimum wage payment provisions on the basis of putative productivity. “In this context, productivity is about comparing a disabled employee’s output with another employee doing the same job and, if it is considered that the disabled employee’s productivity is lower, paying them at a lower rate. It is not a concept used elsewhere in the employment sector.”
Allowing exemptions to the minimum wage contradicts the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and constitutes discrimination within the terms of New Zealand’s Human Rights Act, DPA says.
DPA national policy researcher Wendi Wicks says fears that disabled people will be unable to find work outside sheltered workshops are unfounded. “Alternatives have been in place for a number of years, and there have been help and support to move people and organisations towards supported employment,” Wicks says. Repeal of the DPEP Act does not mean disabled people will be discarded with nowhere to go, she says.
