Access by Various artists

http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/job_guarantee/JobGuarantee.cfm

My email to Jacinda must have woven its way through the bureaucratic ether and this afternoon I got a phone call from someone in Work and Income's employment service asking whether I was looking for some help with finding Oscar a job. He could meet with him and have a chat about options, but as Oscar was on the Supported Living benefit he was not obligated to work. I said I was not specifically looking for work for Oscar (although that would be great) but the thousands of disabled people generally who didn't have jobs.

It turned out the email had landed in his inbox, forwarded from the office of the Minister for Disability Issues. I said I had hoped it would land on the Minister of Employment's desk. So we had a chat about the problems of finding work for people with disabilities, and we will also talk in the new year about possible work opportunities for Oscar.

I wonder if I will get any more responses to my email?

I've published a revised edition for a global Internet audience of "The Driverless Road Ahead" on Medium. In the meantime we're still waiting for the Future of Work manifesto to properly go from theory to practice.

And in the new year I'm taking the plunge with Dev Academy - which has finally been NZQA approved and hence eligible for student loans.

And in the new year I’m taking the plunge with Dev Academy – which has finally been NZQA approved and hence eligible for student loans.

Good for you. Best of luck!

This sounds great in theory but I wonder whether it actually means real jobs for real people.

this afternoon I got a phone call

what a coincidence!

We have some recent NZ disability employment guidelines

https://www.nzdsn.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/F_7270-NZD_Employment_Guidelines_WEB.pdf

There is an interesting conference on Labour, Employment and Work (https://lewconf.co.nz/) taking place this week in Wellington. Unfortunately, there don't appear to be any papers on disability. I considered putting in an abstract, but couldn't afford another conference (fees and time are expensive when most of your work is voluntary and your income comes from a few contracts).

But this is symptomatic of a bigger problem. Although 24% of the population identified as disabled in the 2013 census we have no academic departments or network of scholars or academics critiquing or advocating on disability issues. Again, disability is niche - assumed to be neither interesting or relevant to the wider population.

I wonder how this could be turned around?

disability employment guidelines

Guidelines for employment *support providers*. Avoids tackling the biggest barrier which is the beliefs and behaviours of employers.

Happy International Disability Day. Time to smash ableism!

Hi Hilary I fully agree with your post. The lack of opportunities is disgraceful., and it does looks a bit like your timely letter to the PM has been given the ‘pass on’ treatment. However the beef is about the no academic department comment above. There are academic departments, well we are based in a School but have our own unique area within it, and small networks of academic scholars who are interrogating contemporary practices in the area of disability and inclusion in NZand internationally. The Uni of Waikato offers a Masters in Disability and Inclusion Studies, and has done so for the last decade. We have hung on through a wide-reaching Faculty restructure, and have slowly grown in numbers and reputation during this time. Sadly our presence isn’t well enough known. It has not been easy – we are a combination of disabled and non disabled staff and students with all that this means,, and that in itself has been a struggle. As you know undertaking research In this area is not easy, Yet we have successfully supervised 10 masters research completions with more to come and there are 3 PhD students currently researching in the area in a NZ context with one further graduating very soon. Some of this research has been published for international audiences. As academics we cannot be complete advocates I’m afraid, (the much contested partiality of the researcher applies here). Nevertheless we are very much here and any support would be welcome.

Ps. Our teacher trainees also take courses in Inclusive practices so that too is happening.

Good to hear, Carol. I thought you had been restructured almost out of existence. Perhaps your student(s) could write a blog about their work for Access sometime.

Very pleased to hear to hear the ministers' announcement yesterday that Minimum Wage Exemptions will finally be phased out. They will be replaced by a wage subsidy to the employer which is still sending a message that a disabled worker is less valuable than a non-disabled one. But it is an important step towards employment rights.

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/disability-sector-consulted-minimum-wage