Cosmic Failure
I have been following with great interest (Okay maybe more like RAGE) the controversy growing in Saskatoon Saskatchewan (say that 3 times fast my American friends!) over the exploitation of citizens with disabilities who attend a “work preparation day program” called Cosmo Industries. This organization, and countless others across North America, believe that “work like activities” will prepare folks for real jobs. Unfortunately this is very seldom the case. Vocational rehabilitation study after study concludes that most participants simply stay where they are, in perpetual training, for the rest of their lives, engaged life wasting activities. Worse still is that participants at Cosmo Industries in Saskatoon get paid a stipend for their work at recycling the communities garbage (well under minimum wage), while the organization realizes a significant income from a provincial contract for this work.The only reason this organization can do this is because the “employees, participants, consumers,” have disabilities. Click here to read the article “Cosmo Defends Stipend“ from the Star Phoenix.
If this was happening in developing country a half a world a way we would be calling it slave labor, and we all would be boycotting products manufactured in these “sweat shops”.
Outrageous. Here is what I know to be true, grouping people together based on what the community believes to be most broken, is at best, wrong minded and at worst is THIS.
I imagine, a young women with disabilities silently standing up on a chair in the middle of the conveyor belts, silently holding a sign that says “STRIKE”. I wonder what would happen to that precious provincial contract if there was no one on the lines to sort the recycling?
I’ve worked in sheltered workshop’s supporting people with disabilities to package knives forks and spoons for fast food restaurants, I have supervised enclaves of people with disabilities working in manufacturing settings where 4 people share one wage, none of it leads to real work for real money. None of it leads to connections, or relationships, or opportunity.
Don’t try to sell me the notion that “some people will never be employed”. I have had the great privilege of supporting citizens with very significant, medically complicated, or what the system calls “behaviorally challenged” (which seems to me might sometimes be more aptly called pissed off) disabilities develop real and meaningful careers. Certainly getting paid real money for a real job so you can build a real life is important, but good, conscious organizations find ways of helping citizens utilize their gifts and make contributions to community all the time.
I hope the young (or old) woman (or man) who I imagine might be holding that sign someday soon, knows I’m standing behind her, along with leagues of people who know how broken our community will continue to be if we allow this kind of exploitation.
Shame on Cosmo Industries, lipstick on a pig is still a pig.
Solidarity and Peace.
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