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May 25, 2004
There's room at the top for workers with disabilities:
Research shows union membership and gender are key factors
Some workers with disabilities are finding their way to the top rungs of the earnings ladder – but being male and unionized seem to be key requirements for such success. The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) finds that more than 40% of male workers with disabilities who are covered by a collective agreement earn salaries in the top quarter of the earnings range. In fact, male workers with disabilities have fairly similar earnings profiles to their non-disabled counterparts as long as they are covered by a collective agreement.
"These results suggest that unions help to level the playing field for male workers with disabilities" says CCSD Senior Researcher Gail Fawcett, who conducted the research. "But unionized women with disabilities lag far behind. Certainly, unionization appears to pull them out of the really low levels of earnings, but few of them make it to the upper income brackets. And non-unionized workers with disabilities of both genders still lag behind their counterparts without disabilities, with women being particularly disadvantaged."
Among women with disabilities covered by a collective agreement, the majority still earn salaries in the bottom two quarters, with less than 20% earning salaries in the top quarter. Among the estimated 3.6 million Canadians with some form of physical or mental disability, the majority still earn wages below the median.
The federal government has recently announced another "multilateral framework agreement" to improve the employment situation of people with disabilities. Fawcett would like to see some concrete commitments.
"A few ramps aren't going to do the trick. Helping people get their high school and post-secondary education is crucial – because education has a great impact on the salaries of persons with disabilities. Finding ways to enhance the workplace rights of people with disabilities would help as well. I was happy to see that the federal Pay Equity Task Force has incorporated the CCSD's recommendation that the new federal pay equity legislation should apply to persons with disabilities."
Acknowledging the real struggles of people with disabilities is the first step. Fawcett's information sheets point out that working-age Canadians with disabilities are more than twice as likely as their counterparts without disabilities to suffer from additional health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, diabetes and migraines.
"This means Canada's struggling health system needs to get in gear to provide for their needs, especially in the territories, where less than 60% of people with disabilities have a regular doctor," says Fawcett. She adds that in areas such as Montreal and the Lac St Jean area of Quebec, people with disabilities are also less likely than the norm to have a regular doctor.
These latest Disability Research Information Sheets, Numbers 13 to 15, are part of an ongoing series begun by Gail Fawcett in 2001.
For interviews, please contact:
Janet Creery, Communications Officer
Tel: (613) 236-8977, ext. 228
Fax: (613) 236-2750
E-mail: media@ccsd.ca
The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) is an independent, national, non-profit organization focusing on issues of social and economic security
Canadian Council on Social Development,
190 O'Connor Street, Suite 100,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2R3
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca
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