Group 8

1. Group 8 Precarious Employment, Disability and Social Location

2. Presentation Summary Shivani – Course reading 2 (Precarious Employment) Ryan – Course reading 2 and GWD Saif – Course reading 1 (From flexibility to accommodation) Aditi – Article (Mechanisms of disability discrimination) Mike – Critical analysis (Universal Design)

3. Precarious Employment and People with Disabilities Tompa et al.

4. Summary • defining disability • government legislation for improvement • article

5. Theorizing Disability • Two Conceptual Frameworks: • Nagi’s version: “Disability is an inability or limitation in performing socially defined roles and tasks expected of an individual within a sociocultural and physical environment.” • Nagi and WHO’s version: “Disability is not taken as a characteristic of an individual but, rather, as a relational phenomenon that arises from the interaction of an individual and her or his personal characteristics within a particular social environment”

6. Policy and Legislation Context • Historic labour market Disadvantage for the disabled. • What are some of the costs and benefits to the society if the government assists these individuals? • Inherent civil right to participate in economic activities.

7. Continued… • Establishing equal opportunities for everyone. • Introducing Canada Human Right in 1978. • Employment Equity Act through which the federal government designs four main groups to be given equal rights: • Aboriginal people • Women • Visible minorities • Peple with disabilities • Pay Equity: “Equal pay for work of equal value.

8. Article: ‘Just because you can get a wheelchair in the building doesn’t mean that you can still participate’: Barriers to the career advancement of disabled professionals. • The participation rate for disabled is still less compared to non-disabled. • Leadership roles are not defined for disabled. • ‘Glass Cliff’- explains different reasons for precariousness in leadership job roles.

9. Continued… • Reasons that lead to an increase in precariousness for the disabled in the workforce: • Lack of opportunity • Lack of knowledge • Lack of time and resources • Lack of organizational and peer support

10. Research on the Labour Market Experience

11. 2 questions • What is the experience of people with disabilities? • How have these experiences changed with policy shifts and labor developments?

12. 2 data sources • Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) • Labour Market Activity survey

13. Identifying people with disabilities • “Do you have any long term disabilities or handicaps?”

14. General findingsPrevalence of disability • Labour Market Activity Survey – 13-14% have disabilities • Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics – 17-18% have disabilities (1999-2001)

15. General findingsEmployment while being disabled With disability 43-63% Without disability 83-88%

16. Fig 4.1

17. Trends

18. 2 clusters Cluster 1 Anyone aged 17 - 64 Cluster 2 Anyone aged 17 – 64 who are in the labour force

19. Trends Cluster 1 • Business cycle • Average annual income • Household Cluster 2 • Household income (relative to cluster 1) • Non-standard work • Working poor

20. Part time work • Part time work (15-21% vs. 11-14%)

21. GWD (2005) Reasons for part time work 99.14% 0.86%

22. An important general trend… • Gender and intersectionality Employment while being disabled Men 48-71% Women 35-57%

23. Mechanisms of Disability Discrimination In large Bureaucratic Organizations: Ascriptive Inequalities in the Workplace Pamela M. Robert & Sharon L. Harlan

24. Nature & Extent of Work Organizations responsibility. • It looks at 2 Types of Mechanisms: • Interpersonal Mechanisms of Discrimination. • Organizational Mechanisms of Tolerance and Encouragement.

25. Interpersonal Mechanisms of Discrimination. • Marginalization : Being an “Outsider in the Workplace”. • Fictionalization : Acquiring an Imputed Identity through Reflected Appraisals: “Incompetent; Helpless” • Harassment : Feeling the Sting of Hostility.

26. Organizational Mechanisms of Tolerance and Encouragement. • From Marginalization to Job Segregation. • The Impact of Fictionalization on Job Placement, Promotion and Reasonable Accommodation. • Harassment and the Hostile Work Environment.

27. From flexibility to accommodation? Disabled people and the reinvention of paid work Wilton, R

28. From flexibility to accommodation? Disabled people and the reinvention of paid work 3 main objectives of the paper:  examines the paid employment experiences of disabled people, with attention access to accommodation. Considers how paid work constitutes a site for disciplining of disabled bodies/mind in contemporary society Connects to the experience of disabled workers

29. Several ways to find out in which this organizational culture has implications fro disabled people: • Workplace accommodation • Disabled bodies/mind depart from disabled norms (self-disciplining) • Disabled vs non disabled workers (problem worker and special treatment) • A study on a Hamilton based non-profit employment service for disabled people concerning these implications and were organized under three broad categories • Training and multi-tasking • Speed of the labour process • Emotional and aesthetic labour

30. At base, each of these is concerned with the extent to which workers are able to exercisecontrol in the context of the labour process/work environment. • The analysis demonstrates that respondents’ frequent lack of control made it difficult to obtain accommodation at work. • It also shows how a lack of accommodation inscribed the bodies and minds of workers with impairments as problematic and of limited value.

31. Towards socio-spatial inclusion? Disabled people, neoliberalism and the contemporary labour market. This paper examines the implications of changes wrought by neoliberalism for disabled people where employment is the primary factor for social inclusion . The paper explores the extent to which these developments place disabled workers in a precarious position between an increasingly hostile welfare state and a labour market in which the ‘able-body/mind’ remains a largely unquestioned norm

32. The basic difference with the previous article is. It is done from employer perspectives on hiring and accommodating disabled people. • A study based in Hamilton was done (employers). Principal area of interest in the analysis was respondents’ conceptualization of the ‘suitability’ of disabled workers in the context of specific labour process/ workplace configurations . • These judgements are a key determinant of the success or failure of social inclusion programmes centred on paid work.

33. The analysis produced five themes • . • If you can’t, you can’t . . . • A level playing field • Benevolence • Exploitation • Meaningful accommodation

34. Comparing the two articles: Role of Government policies Role of union and employer. The experience of disabled people in the labour force is shaped by the economic reforms of society as employment is a principal factor for social inclusion. Able mind/body is a dominant norm which hinders disabled peoples’ employment opportunities.  Both from employers’ and employees’ perspectives the struggling experience and the precariousness of their workplace is eminent. 

35. Universal Design: an interdisciplinary approach

36. Universal Design: an interdisciplinary approach • Vosco describes disability as an imbalance between individual and his or her environment. • Typically, disability is perceived as a problem with the individual rather than the environment. • The stigma is that people with disabilities require special treatment and that his treatment is costly.

37. But why? • Accommodation is not as costly as it is perceived to be. • Techniques for universal design in the workplace can benefit all, not only those who need it.

38. Examples • Curb Cut • Automatic Doors • Improved software that is simple, intelligent legible.

39. Getting started: • Breaking the misconception. • VIDEO: Body Storming • An example a design technique that can be used by employers to see the actual limitations of their employees. • Suddenly, Accommodation doesn’t seem so daunting. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyE5bDqaSwc

40. Bibliography Vosko, Leah and Nancy Zukewich. 2006. “Precarious by Choice? Gender and Self Employment.” pp. 67-89 in Vosko, ed. Precarious Employment: Understanding Labour Market Insecurity in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press. Wilton, R; Schuer, S. (2006). “Towards socio-spatial inclusion? Disabled people neoliberalism and the contemporary labour market.” Area vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 186-195. Wilton, R. (2004). “From flexibility to accommodation? Disabled people and the reinvention of paid work”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 29, no. 4, , pp. 420-432. Robert P. M. & Harlan S. L., (2006). Mechanisms of Disability Discriminations in Large Bureaucratic Organizations: Ascriptive Inequalities in the Workplace. The Sociological Quarterly 47, 599-630. Retrieved February 3, 2009 from Scholars Portal.

41. Wilson-Kovacs, Dana; Ryan, Michelle K.; Haslam, S. Alexander; Rabinovich, Anna (2008). "Just because You Can Get a Wheelchair inthe Building Doesn't Necessarily Mean that You Can Still Participate": Barriers to the Career Advancement of Disabled Professionals. Disability & Society, 23(7), 705-717.