The Council of the European Union agreed on the final text of its Council Conclusions on fostering social inclusion of persons with disabilities through employment, reasonable accommodation and rehabilitation on 2 December. We gave considerable input to the drafting of this document.
Council Conclusions are official, non-binding statements made by the Council of the EU. In this case, they express the political stance of the Council on how the EU and its Member States should be working to improve employment outcomes for persons with disabilities.
Strong points
We were pleased to see that the focus on “integrating” persons with disabilities into the labour market was replaced with a focus on “inclusion”. This acknowledges that it is the open labour market and employers that must show greater flexibility, and not persons with disabilities who should adapt to a rigid work culture.
The framing of sheltered workshops was also improved with an increased focus on the transition towards work in the open labour market compared to earlier drafts. The text now states that “While efforts to increase the employment of persons with disabilities should focus on open labour market employment, alternative settings outside the open labour market (e.g. sheltered workshops, sheltered employment) still exist. Those alternative settings vary significantly across Member States, and the transition rate from those settings to the open labour market is very low in most Member States (..).”
We also welcome the fact that the strong focus on:
- The importance of offering reasonable accommodation as soon as it is requested, stating that the denial of reasonable accommodation constitutes discrimination.
- The difference between accessibility and reasonable accommodation, explaining that “accessibility is of an anticipatory nature, whereas reasonable accommodation is something that comes after, as a way of overcoming remaining barriers and in response to individual requirements”.
- The need for national targets to improve employment outcomes for persons with disabilities.
- How diversity in the workplace has a positive impact on employee performance and productivity.
- The need to consult persons with disabilities and their representative organisations when developing policies on employment.
- The importance of supporting the transition between education and training and the open labour market, and also between sheltered employment and the open labour market.
- The need to explore possibilities for taking advantage of flexible working arrangements (such as flexible working hours, part-time employment, teleworking, project-based employment or even job-sharing).
Need for improvement
One of our main demands is that the Conclusions should mention the need to prevent persons with disabilities from losing their disability allowance and access to certain services once they begin working. Unfortunately, despite our advocacy, the EU member states did not agree to this and therefore it was omitted.
Persons with disabilities often have a higher-than-average cost of living. Relying on a salary alone to cover disability-related costs is often unrealistic, especially as persons with disabilities are more likely to work part-time and be paid a lower salary. This is especially true of women with disabilities.
For this reason, we want more Member States to show flexibility when persons with disabilities start working and allow them to retain more of their disability allowance.