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Re: Letter to the editor, Repeal of Bill 148 about more than minimum wage, Oct. 24, 2018.
In her letter, Jessa McLean of Fight for $15 and Fairness drags "sheltered workshops" into the debate as her opening salvo to attack Premier Doug Ford.
She writes, "One particularly reprehensible move surrounds ‘sheltered workplaces’, which allows for workers with disabilities to be employed outside of the Employment Standards Act, meaning they can be paid even less than minimum wage and do not benefit from other protections left in the Act."
I am not writing to defend Doug Ford. I am writing to defend the sheltered workshop programs for low-functioning individuals across this province. I own a small business that gives piecework to these workshops to keep their attendees busy through the day.
Our company has used one of these programs for over six years to package our products for retail sale. It is a simple yet monotonous task that is paid by the piece upon completion, at 12 cents per package: Pick up two pieces, put them back to back, slide them into a long skinny plastic bag, insert two smaller pieces, fold over a cardboard stock header card and attach it to the baggie with two staples.
We were using a Community Living program in Richmond Hill, until the provincial government shut it down in 2015 following a Toronto Star investigation that painted the workers as "exploited".
These program attendees are not workers per se. They attend a program five days a week, that allows family members, mostly parents, to go about their day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., possibly to work, possibly to just have some time to themselves while the program attendee is in a structured, consistent, supervised environment. The fact that some programs bring in piecework gives the attendees — we call them team members — something to do, and when completed, gives them a real sense of accomplishment.
I miss going to the Richmond Hill program twice a week to drop off and pick up product. I miss seeing the team members and their excitement — seriously, excitement — when I show up with product to be packaged. One young lady loved that I was a New England Patriots fan, and that I would show up in a Pats shirt or hoodie sometimes. We would chat about how she loved watching Patriots games Sundays with her Dad, and her excitement watching Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. I miss interacting with them, high-fiving them, and having conversations with those would could. I loved seeing them, and they loved seeing me and working with my products. Each visit truly brightened my day.
In the summer of 2015, the provincial government ended this program. Government officials were invited to meet with team members and their families to discuss the program, but nobody ever attended. Parents were left scrambling, wondering what to do with their sons and daughters who require highly supervised care throughout the day. Where have all those team members gone? Are they just sitting around at home? Many think they can just get a job at the grocery store or Tim Hortons, but this is simply not the case. These are low-functioning individuals who, while lovely people, can simply not be counted on to perform tasks consistently day in, day out. We learned this firsthand, seeing the challenges and how the staff managed the team members. We learned some days a team member could package 600 of our products, another day perhaps 250, and another day none at all.
I met many parents who loved the fact their kids had a safe, supervised place to be during the day. I met many incredible staff members, highly trained on how to work with these individuals, with incredible patience and understanding. Both parents and staff members were appalled they were never consulted and that they were essentially dumped by their government to save face.
I have been told I should bring in one or two of these individuals to work for me, but I cannot provide the supervision or personal attention they require.
These programs are necessary for these individuals to have a safe place to go during the day. The fact they complete simple or menial tasks gives them a sense of accomplishment and the ability to go home and say, "I went to work today."
To bring these workshops into question in a fight for a higher minimum wage is simply opportunistic. I question if those who include these workshops as an issue in their fight with the government if they have had any experience with them, of if they are simply painting them with a broad brush as our previous government did? I also must ask if anyone in the $15 for Fairness camp would want to do a task such as our packaging for 12 cents per package. To consider these programs as taking work away from others and companies such as mine as being greedy in capitalizing on the differently abled is nothing more than hyperbole.
Ted Nesbitt, owner, BladeTape
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