On employment ...

Business Benefits of Hiring People with a Disability
Around one in every five people in the Australian community has some form of disability (18.5% ABS 2009). It is from this community that organisations draw their existing and potential employees, clients, shareholders, business partners and service providers. Our community is also ageing; it is estimated that four in 10 workers will be aged 45 or over by 2020. As disability increases with age, this has significant workplace implications.

In Australia’s competitive marketplace, both domestically and globally, and while facing skills shortages, we simply can’t afford to ignore this huge market segment of the community, as employers and as service providers.

The most significant barrier for people with disability, however, still appears to be the stereotypical assumptions and attitudes of employers about what people with disability can and cannot do ...

Starbucks' 'Includion Academy'

Starbucks Newsroom, 28th January 2015

... Starbucks is launching an on-the-job training program for people with cognitive and physical disabilities at its Carson Valley Roasting Plant and Distribution Center.

The plant in Minden, Nevada employs 210 people who distribute products to Starbucks® stores worldwide. Several of the partners (employees) have completed the Starbucks Inclusion Academy program which helps them gain skills and work experience in manufacturing and distribution.

The Inclusion Academy is the result of a year-long collaboration between Starbucks and the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR). Starbucks provides training space at the Carson Valley plant and instructors for on-the-job and soft-skills practice ...

News Update – Business Services Wage Assessment Tool
Inclusion Australia, 3 March 2015

... Justice Buchanan commented extensively about the discriminatory nature of BSWAT, including saying that ‘Intellectually disabled people are placed, at the outset, at a disadvantage which prevents effective compliance.’ He also commented that ‘The basic defect in the use of BSWAT is that it reduces wages to which intellectually disabled workers would otherwise be entitled by reference to considerations which do not bear upon the work that they actually do.’ ...

BSWAT update - Wage Supplementation
disability e-news (newsletter from the Australian Department of Social Services)
Issue 219, 24th March 2015
The information contained in this newsletter is aimed at disability service providers (but anyone can subscribe).

Abbott government likely to ask for deadline extension on disability wage

Lenore Taylor, The Guardian, 26th March 2015

The Abbott government is likely to have to ask the Human Rights Commission for extra time to come up with a new system to determine fair wages for thousands of intellectually disabled workers, three years after the old system was declared discriminatory ...

Aspiring chef with Down's syndrome lands dream job in a cafe after Twitter campaign and the first thing he asked his new boss was 'when's the next staff party?'
Daily Mail Australia, 26th March 2015
A Twitter hashtag set up to help a man with Down's syndrome find work has landed him his first job.

Ben Small, 26, was offered a job at the Wilson's Kitchen café in Liverpool after owners Lloyd and Kellie Wilson responded to the appeal - and he started his first shift there yesterday ...