From the
Sydney Morning Herald. In the picture, Andrew West, 45, Darryl Howard, 52, and David Watling, 60, work at Ozanam Industries, which employs people with intellectual disabilities.
Worker with disabilities are the latest victims of the financial crisis.
As companies try to cut costs by moving production jobs offshore or keeping them in-house, businesses that employ disabled workers are losing contracts.
Australian Disability Enterprises has begun a campaign to attract more jobs for its 20,000 employees, who work at 362 outlets.
Some employers of disabled workers have reported a 25 per cent fall in trade, and the loss of contracts could be worth millions of dollars as clients shift work - including packaging, direct mail and assembly - overseas.
The Who Do You Know? campaign was initiated by The Spastic Centre Business Services in NSW, which employs 170 people with cerebral palsy. It says disability organisations are a cost-effective alternative for business.
A non-profit firm that employs 466 intellectually and physically disabled people in South Australia, the Phoenix Society, said it stood to lose half its $1 million contract with General Motors because of a slow-down at the company's Holden plant in Elizabeth.
"They are still very good supporters of ours but, as their production turns down, then it has a direct effect on us," said the chief executive, Ian Terry. He estimated business had fallen 15 per cent.
Ozanam Industries, a subsidiary of the St Vincent de Paul Society, employs more than 100 people with intellectual disabilities. Its business development manager, Rod Silber, said business had fallen 25 per cent in the past year. He urged governments in Australia to follow the lead of the United States, which employs more than 40,000 disabled workers to carry out contracts worth $2.3 billion under the Ability One scheme.
It should be compulsory for government departments to seek a quote from an agency with disabled employees, he said. "How can I expect the Commonwealth Bank to give me work if the damn government doesn't do it?"
Mr Terry from the Phoenix Society said if people with disabilities lost their jobs it would have a "multiplier effect" on parents and other carers.
A spokesman for the federal parliamentary secretary for disabilities, Bill Shorten, did not respond in time for publication.
From the Sydney Morning Herald. In the picture, Andrew West, 45, Darryl Howard, 52, and David Watling, 60, work at Ozanam Industries, which employs people with intellectual disabilities.