Charlotte Bailey has two jobs. Three days a week, she works in the bistro at Eastlake Football Club in Canberra, brewing coffee, ferrying meals and making jellies. One day a week, she performs admin tasks at the offices of ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability, where she writes speeches to advocate for people who, like her, have Down syndrome.
The 24-year-old’s situation is unusual: she is paid at least the standard minimum wage for both jobs – currently $24.10 per hour before tax. But workers with Down syndrome often receive vastly less than this, sometimes as low as $3.01 an hour.
That’s because they are often not employed under the standard award for their industry but under the supported employment award, which allows companies to legally pay staff with intellectual disability a fraction of what they pay everyone else.
“I think it’s not fair,” Bailey says. “Everyone who does the same job should get the same pay. I get paid the same as everyone else in the bistro because we all do the same work.”
Her friends who receive subminimum wages are frustrated, Bailey says. “Sometimes they do get very upset, and it’s very hard to see that. And that’s why I’m here, to have a voice and stand up.”
About 20,000 people, mostly workers with intellectual disability, are employed under Australia’s supported wage system. Most are not working in the open market but are employed in segregated work environments – what were once called “sheltered workshops”, now known as Australian disability enterprises (ADEs).
Polling conducted by Essential on behalf of Down Syndrome Australia this month showed that 85% of respondents did not know people with disability were legally being paid subminimum wages. Once they did know, 82% thought it was unacceptable. The same polling showed 79% of respondents agreed the government should take action to help people with disability into meaningful jobs.
On Friday, Down Syndrome Australia headed to Canberra to launch a campaign to encourage politicians to do exactly that - and to commit to abolishing the subminimum wage.
“It needs to be a carefully planned transition,” says Darryl Steff, the Down Syndrome Australia chief executive. “You can’t just turn these minimum wages off tomorrow and start paying everyone full wage … We’re saying do it as a planned transition and make sure that employers and employees are supported as part of that process so that no one gets left behind.”
The royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability revitalised the grassroots campaign against subminimum wages when it recommended, in 2023, that the federal government aim to reduce workplace segregation and achieve wage parity for people with disability by 2034. It proposed beginning with a scheme to immediately raise wages to at least 50% of the current minimum.
“The challenge that we have in the work environment is that there are not the right support systems in place to allow everyone the opportunity to work in open employment, and that’s what needs to change,” Steff says.
“We’re not saying that all ADEs should shut tomorrow … but there should be a transition away from that segregated employment to an approach where people with disability have the opportunity to work alongside people without disability and be paid the minimum wage. At the moment, one of the big challenges, particularly for people with Down syndrome, is that that opportunity is often just not even presented to them.”
“I want to see more opportunities in the workplaces,” Bailey says. “People with disabilities can do lots of things. You just need to support them and they will show you.”
In January last year, Guardian Australia revealed that people with disability working in supported employment were also being legally paid less superannuation than the rest of the workforce due to an oversight in the award. The Fair Work Commission has since amended it so that super payments for people with disability keep pace with the federal superannuation guarantee.
People in the supported wage system are usually participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which pays employers to fund employment supports. Those workers also receive the disability support pension (DSP), which tapers off very steeply once their wages cut in. This is often used as an excuse for keeping subminimum wages, Steff says.
“We don’t consider that to be an appropriate argument. The disability royal commission didn’t consider it to be either because that’s still not respecting [people with disability’s] human rights, and not allowing them to live with dignity and equality, earn a wage like anyone else wants to, and build skills in employment.”
Steff says the DSP could be adjusted to allow for permanent eligibility for some people with disability, tapering off when they are earning enough but keeping access to healthcare benefits intact and allowing them immediate access to the safety net again if their circumstances changed. It would also remove the need for reapplication, a particularly onerous process for someone with intellectual disability.
“That relatively small redesign of the system would actually make a world of difference to thousands of people with Down syndrome and their families,” Steff says.
“People with disability can do a job; they just need a bit of help and may take a bit longer to learn,” Bailey says. “But they will get there, like me.”
