Research Questions: What are the requirements set out by the UNCRPD, as a human rights instrument, in the planning an operation process of WISE? What can the UNCRPD add to the existing concept?
Persons with disabilities have traditionally faced many barriers when trying to find employment, ranging from physical access, to a lack of education and being formally declared unfit to work. They have therefore been left with no alternative to segregated work. With the rise of the disability rights movement and especially with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), this approach has been discarded.
Based on similar thoughts, citizen initiatives have started Work Integration Social Enterprises, in order to enable persons with disabilities, among other marginalized groups, to earn a living based on meaningful employment.
While there has been a considerable amount of attention on a policy level, on how to make the existing open labour market accessible, it has been noted that other mechanisms are necessary, in order for persons with disabilities to overcome the historical disadvantage and to achieve substantive equality. Under the category of supported employment, Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE) contribute to enhancing the skills of persons with disabilities and providing important work experience under an actual employment contract.
This contribution highlights the features added to the concept of WISE from a disability rights perspective. Under the requirements of empowerment, inclusion and equality, as set out by the UNCRPD, several important points will be outlined. While the UNCRPD addresses States as bearers of duties, WISE themselves, as citizen initiatives and enterprises with a social mission, can draw from the understanding of how to plan, implement and work with persons with disabilities, instead of merely for them as well.
The key lessons to be addressed from a disability perspective are as follows:
Service user involvement as a fulfillment of the participatory nature of social enterprises - what has to be considered to make the involvement meaningful? This will include questions of plain language and elected representatives or Unions.
Including persons with disabilities in the planning process of a WISE from the outset, following the principle of ’Nothing about us without us’. By doing so a broader range of services provided by WISE can be achieved.
Promoting inclusion in employment - what are the main targets?
Outreach work to promote awareness at the open labour market, for instance on the business perspective of how to implement the requirement of reasonable accommodation.
Which types of jobs should be offered?
Can permanent jobs outside the open labour market be justified under the UNCRPD?
Having a person-centered approach in helping the person finding employment, therefore not trying to make the person fit a job but rather helping the person find a truly inclusive job.
Cooperation with support programmes, such as Job Coaches.
This research and the presentation will be theoretical, based primarily on a review of the relevant literature. By bringing together the human rights approach of the UNCRPD and the concept of WISE, this research paper will be interdisciplinary, combining sociological, legal and business points of view. By doing so, a fuller picture, promoting understanding between the actors involved, will be produced.
Main references:
Colin Barnes, Geof Mercer, ’Disability, Work, and Welfare: Challenging the Social Exclusion of Disabled People’ 533 (2005) 19(3) Work, Employment and Society
Carlo Borzage, Jacques Defourny, The Emergence of Social Enterprise (Routledge 2001)
Ruth Colker, When is separate unequal? A Disability Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Sandra Fredman, Discrimination Law (2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2011)
Edward Hall, Robert Wilton, ’Alternative Spaces of ’Work’ and Inclusion for Disabled People’ (2011) 26(7) Disability and Society
Alex Nicholls (ed) Social Entrepreneurship: New Models of Sustainable Social Change (Oxford University Press 2006)
Roger Spear, Eric Bidet, ’Social Enterprise for Work Integration in 12 European Countries: A Descriptive Analysis’ (2005) 76(2) Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics
10. Gender and diversity issues
