Article 27: Work and Employment
According to statistics quoted in Paragraph 229 of the State Report, the labor participation rate for persons with disabilities is only one-third of the general population, namely at 19.7%, while unemployment rate is three times that of the general population, namely at 11%. In fact, for persons with disabilities who are able to enter the job market, the types of jobs available to them are very limited: ‘low-level technician or laborer’ emerges at the top with 31.3%, followed by ‘service and sales personnel’ at 20.2%, the third being ‘administrative assistance personnel’ at 12.1%, and the fourth ‘administrative assistance or personal support (including receptionists, communication or administrative staff) at 11.6%. Of these, the vision impaired are mostly employed in the massage field (19.9%). Furthermore, there is great disparity in employment rate among persons with disabilities of different categories and degree, for example vision impaired at 16.2%, autistic persons at 13.8%, persons with chronic mental disabilities at 14.9% and persons with multiple disabilities at 7.0%. Employment rate for persons with extremely severe and severe disabilities is 7.5% and 8.9% respectively.
Following from the last Paragraph, according to a 2014 survey by the Ministry of Labor, the government has noticed that out of 136,274 employees who were people with disabilities, 32.5% were engaged in part-time work, temporary work, dispatch work and other informal work, earning only TWD$16,046 a month of regular wages, which was lower than the minimum monthly wages of TWD$19,273 of the same year in Taiwan. Further scrutiny of the wage figures for people with different types of disabilities will show that If one were to scrutinize the differentiation among disabilities, people with mental disabilities who were employed on monthly wages clearly had lower income than people of other disabilities, including: ‘patients of chronic mental illnesses’ (TWD$18,549), ‘dementia’ (TWD$17,291), ‘people with mental disabilities’ (TWD$15,886) and ‘autistic mental disabilities’ (TWD$15,433); as for people with mental disabilities who were earning hourly wages, employers often allocated fewer numbers of working hours in a discriminatory manner, for example the autistic often received monthly wages of only $7,646.12
The government should formulate effective policies aimed at increasing the employability of persons with disabilities, especially targeting at addressing challenges facing persons with severe or mental disabilities in a dynamic and comprehensive manner. Regarding women with disabilities, it is necessary for the government to acknowledge the additional societal burdens placed on women to look after their family and the impact on women with disabilities seeking employments. The Government should focus on removing barriers and challenges facing women with disabilities seeking employment. Regarding the double difficulty that women with disabilities face in entering the job market, please refer to Article 6 of this Report.
Job discrimination being defined too narrowly and threshold for complaint too high (in response to Paragraph 227 of the State Report)
According to Article 5, Article 6 and the ‘Implementation Guidelines’ of the Employment Service Act, the employer is not to discriminate against job seekers or employees on the grounds of ‘disabilities’. However, the act does not give further explanation on the nature and form of discrimination, but refers the power of discretion to city or county authorities and a committee on job discrimination formed by relevant government departments, units, labor organizations, representatives of employers’ organizations and experts. Furthermore, as the forms of discrimination such as ‘indirect discrimination’, ‘associative discrimination’ and ‘refusal to provide reasonable accommodations’ (refer to Paragraph 24 of Article 2) have not been formalized in law, people with disabilities find great difficulty in declaring their right has been deprived and making a complaint successfully under the current law.
Recommendation to the Government:
In reference to the examples of cases in job discrimination among people with disabilities in the country in 2015 (see Paragraph 227 of the State Report), to explain in detail the reasons in these 25 cases for which discrimination was found and punishment meted out, or discrimination was not found, case was revoked or not accepted. Also, to call on the government to provide an improvement plan, to explain how such channels for appeals based on one’s rights might be more easily known to and used by the public.
In reference to the examples and interpretation on forms of discrimination in the report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding Article 5, to develop a comprehensive law on equality or specific to employment, in order to broaden the definition of job discrimination.
Support Services for Employment Limited in Effectiveness in Promoting Equality at Work
In response to Paragraph 238 of the State Report, regarding an employment quota system: An employment quota system is not able to provide people with disabilities with a stable job opportunity, the job opportunity created and the group benefiting from the system being limited. For example, many public organizations (especially schools) in releasing one lot of temporary job vacancy per year, would actually stipulate that as soon as there is personnel change among other employees such that the employment quota is reached, such a temporary personnel would have to leave the job. Private enterprises on the other hand tend to seek students with disabilities in schools to do part-time work similar to internship, hence avoiding formal employment of people with disabilities. Students as such are unable to gain access to formal work, and have to leave as soon as they graduate. Those who gain work opportunities through an employment quota system are mainly persons with light disabilities, while those with moderate or severe disabilities would not benefit from it. Furthermore, in order to conform to the regulations for employment quota, many employers choose to employ the vision impaired for massage service with basic wages, hence limiting again the opportunities for the vision impaired to develop plural career opportunities.
In response to Paragraph 234 of the State Report, regarding the redesigning of job scopes: Under ‘Implementation Methods and Subsidy Guidelines in redesigning service for the job scope of people with disabilities’ and ‘Amended Rules for implementation plans in the promotion of redesigning service for the job scope of people with disabilities’, the ‘redesigning of job scope’ refers to “measures for improvements in helping to remove job obstacles for people with disabilities, to improve on work efficiency and promote employment”. Job redesigning is one of the important approaches in providing reasonable adjustments. However, this ‘Implementation Plan’ is based on subsidies and incentives, requiring employers and other relevant parties to take initiative to apply for it, hence lacking in legal obligation and power, in fact it is unable to protect the demand of people with disabilities for job redesigning in a job market. For example, many employers are unwilling to provide or allow personal assistants to help in the job market, the same situation being found even in public departments. See Paragraph 222 of this Report.
With regards to people who acquire disabilities later in life, the State Report only elaborates on the service plan for life rehabilitation provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, but has not elaborated on how to provide support at the job market or how to make appropriate adjustments on the job, in order to help one return to the job market.
Vocational training and job market environment for people with disabilities
In response to Paragraphs 187, 231 of the State Report: according to a survey by the Ministry of Labor, only 7.8% of people with disabilities have participated in vocational training. As for the reason, four out of five ‘unemployed’ persons with disabilities or those ‘with ability and intention to work but non-working’ have answered ‘not sure where to find vocational training’. Even though the Ministry of Labor has attempted to push for ‘inclusive vocational training’ said to be barrier-free, people with disabilities show have participated in inclusive vocational training have not reached so much as 4% of the total participants in training (see Table 24.8 in the appendix of the State Report), lower than the ratio of people with disabilities in the total population. Furthermore, even though the government has appointed external organizations to organize vocational training, it has not made it a compulsory precondition of the contract for training venues and training courses to be barrier-free, hence affecting the equal opportunity of people with disabilities in taking part in vocational training.
In response to Paragraphs 47, 48, 235 of the State Report: Although the Ministry of Labor has cited a barrier-free environment as a criterion for shelter workshops, factories and offices generally do not come under old buildings which are stipulated to install barrier-free facilities under Chapter 10 (‘barrier-free buildings’) of Regulations of Architectural Technology. Most workplaces still have problems with stairs or height difference, lack of platform lifts and barrier-free toilets. For the vision impaired, requirements in software and hardware in barrier-free facilities and devices are even more serious than the improvement of the physical environment. Currently, the most commonly faced difficulty is computer for the vision impaired: many computer systems in public and private departments are incompatible with the software of computers for vision impaired.
National examination as direct/indirect exclusion of persons with disabilities (in response to Paragraph 246-249 of the State Report)
There is unreasonable requirement in physical checkup: According to ‘Guidelines on physical checkup for examination of civil servants’, civil servants taking various types of examination are required to go through physical checkup, except that the standards are left to be determined by each set of examination regulations. Many areas of specialization still exclude people with disabilities, and have not scrutinized the rationality behind the restriction or the principle of ratio. For example, the examinations for sheriffs, foreign service or consulate personnel, foreign service administrators and international business personnel have all directly excluded people with severe vision impairment, hearing impairment or physical disability from eligibility for a second or third examination, without assessing in each individual case whether the disability ‘leads to an incapacity in handling the job’. Furthermore, while the second examination for personnel of the Investigation Bureau would include physical test on cardiovascular fitness, upon a check on the description of job scope for level 4 examination with ‘assistant administrative work’ under Ministry of Justice - such as communications surveillance, personnel, accountancy, general affairs, secretariat, dispatch, file management and so on, the job responsibility for such work does not entail a necessity for such physical test on cardiovascular fitness as stated.13
The national examination lacks reasonable adjustments for the sitting of examination: Currently, assistance for people of disabilities is provided at the examination venues under the ‘Key points to implementation of protection of human rights in the participation of examination by people of disabilities for the national examination’. However, with regards to both the degree of disability posing a challenge to writing by people with disabilities, and the type of examination (multiple choice or essay questions), the duration of examination, whereby only 20 minutes of extension may be allowed, is hardly fair. The government should collect past case studies to produce a standard handbook for reference, so that state examinations and private examinations alike will have precedence to refer to.
Even public departments are unable to provide suitable redesigning of jobs. For example, under the rules of special examination for investigation personnel of the investigation bureau under the Ministry of Law, appointments made upon third level examination (including information technology, electronics, medical science or forensic chemistry, construction or maintenance section and investigative work section selecting personnel with special language competence) should be able upon completion of training to be sent to work as office staff for the relevant professional units. However, as part of the operation of the investigation bureau, it should be stipulated that those who have completed training should all accept work in the field before being sent to work in office units.
Closed environment of a sheltered workshop (in response to Paragraph 251 of the State Report)
Conflict between sheltered workshop and freedom in choice of occupation: with regards to those ‘having intention to work’ and ‘having inadequate ability to work’, arranged by the government to be employed as people with disabilities at sheltered workshops, they may have long stayed in the same working environment with colleagues who are mostly people with disabilities (except for the few employment counsellors). Hence, they are unable to train better capability for more diverse work and work flexibility, thereby gaining better chance to enter an open, inclusive labor market and work environment.
Unfavorable labor condition in sheltered workshop employment: As mentioned in Article 40 of Protection of the Rights of People with Disabilities Act, People with Disabilities in sheltered workshop employment are not applicable for regulations on basic wages according to Labor Standards Act. Their wages have to be determined by their ‘productivity’ upon negotiation with employers and them as sheltered workshop employees, and filing reports to the labor administration agency. According to June 2016 statistics, 42.6% of sheltered workshop employees earn wages less than $6,00, while 34.1% fall between $6,000 and $9,000 in wages, 20.2% between $9,000 and $15,000, with only 1.3% of employees enjoying wages that reach basic wages. In comparison with average income standard of $11,448 among low-income households of 2016 in Taiwan, most people with disabilities working at sheltered workshops have an income far below the poverty line.
We call upon the government to fully reexamine the system of sheltered workshops based on the principle of the Convention, in order to ensure that people with disabilities will have the right to freely choose and accept job opportunities to make a living, in an ‘open, inclusive and barrier-free labor market and working environment’. Also, as emphasized in Paragraph 47 of the ‘General Comments’ in No. 23 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, people with disabilities should enjoy equal remuneration for work of equal value, and not be discriminated against in any application of wages due to a perceived reduced capacity for work. We request the government to clarify as to whether there are problems of people with disabilities in sheltered workshops being underestimated with regards to their capacity for work or productivity, leading in fact to unequal remuneration for work of equal value?
Right to work for people with mental disabilities
In response to Paragraphs 232 to 234 in the State Report: As the general public in society may have a poor regard or misunderstanding towards people with mental disabilities, people with mental disabilities are generally reluctant to obtain a certification of mental disability (see Paragraph 21 of Article 1), for fear that an identity of mental disability may affect their chance in finding jobs (with regards to the issue of right to privacy, see Paragraphs 188-189 of Article 22). Even as one enters a job market, it would also be difficult to apply for job redesigning. Employers are not able to comprehend what needs a person without any physical disability may have. Case managers for vocational rehabilitation are also limited in knowledge, and often refuse to open up cases to serve people with mental disabilities, citing reasons that they are unable to take up employment ‘currently’ or ‘at the current stage’. If people with mental disabilities also carry other non-mainstream identities (such as minorities among people with disabilities), they are usually even less willing to come out of the closet. Even if they are willing, the government also lack support personnel with the requisite training and knowledge to provide appropriate support in the job market.
Recommendation:
People with mental disabilities who are unable to obtain handbooks or certification should be allowed to substitute it with medical records, certificate of diagnosis or identity card for major illnesses, in their application for relevant employment support services. One should not cite any doubt as to whether any person with mental disability as the reason to exclude him or her from using such support service.
While training case managers for vocational rehabilitation, the government should enhance knowledge on people with mental disabilities and other various forms of disabilities, so as to upgrade their professional know-how. Job redesigning should take into account different needs for services among different types of disabilities. For example: one could provide peer counselling for people with disabilities, or allow them to seek their own trusted persons for employment support.
The Teachers Act restricts the right to work among teachers who are persons with mental disabilities: According to Article 14 of the Teachers Act, if any teacher is in a state of ‘being proven by qualified doctors to have mental illnesses from which one has not recovered’, the school may dismiss or stop hiring him or her, or choose not to renew his or her contract. Although the regulations require only that a person with disabilities may be hired as teacher as long as he or she is diagnosed by a medical doctor to have recovered, in reality when a teacher who is a person with mental disability has a relapse and requires to take leave for treatment, he or she will easily be dismissed or find the contract not renewed as soon as a medical certificate is produced for the school. Even for those who have gone through a period of time in treatment or have managed to keep the condition under control through medication, it is not very likely to be fully recovered. How could one then be able to obtain a certification from a doctor to prove that one has fully recovered? Such restrictions on the right to work among people with mental disabilities is not in keeping with a principle of proportionality, and hence constitutes discrimination.
- Ministry of Labor (2014) ‘Survey on Labor Situation of People with Disabilities’, Table 6, p. 10.
- Content of tasks in Examination in 2015 for investigation bureau personnel in Ministry of Justice as special examination for civil servants.