“A Place to Work Like Any Other?” Sheltered Workshops in Canada, 1970-1985
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v3i2.155Keywords:
disability activism, disability rights movement, work, employment, deinstitutionalization, sheltered workshop, vocational rehabilitation, token economyAbstract
This article explores the emergence and evolution of sheltered employment in Canada during a period in which the discourse of disability and role of rehabilitation became increasingly contested. From the early 1970s to mid-1980s, sheltered workshops were an integral part of an evolving Canadian welfare state that provided employment to people who were unable to compete in an exclusive capitalist labour market due to physical impairments, intellectual disabilities, or mental health issues. As workplaces within a token economy, sheltered work did not reflect true employment relationships with workers earning “symbolic” rather than “real” wages. Though sheltered work was initially conceived as a strictly transitional part of the rehabilitation process, the workshop system was repurposed in the 1960s and 1970s to handle new pressures created by the deinstitutionalization movement. Workshops acquired new controversial meanings due to these changing workforce demographics, attracting increasingly vocal condemnation from disability rights groups. Eventually, critics launched campaigns to undermine public support for sheltered workshops which were painted as obstacles to the pursuit of full participation in society. Sheltered employment was thus situated at the vanguard of changes in the discourse of disability in Canada during this period and reflected emerging debates about the economic rights and opportunities available to people with disabilities in modern Canadian society.
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
There are no article processing or submission charges for CJDS authors.
Author(s) are not required to assign their copyright in and to their article to the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Instead, The CJDS asks for one-time rights to print this original work.
All articles in the journal are assigned a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Authors are asked to contact the journal Editor if they wish to post the article on any website; translate or authorize a translation of the article; copy or otherwise reproduce the article, in any format, beyond what is permitted under Canadian copyright law, or authorize others to do so; copy or otherwise reproduce portions of the article, including tables and figures, beyond what is permitted under Canadian copyright law, or authorize others to do so.
Contacting the Editor will simply allow us to track the use and distribution of your article. We encourage use for non-commercial, educational purposes.
Authors must provide proof of permission clearance prior to the publication of their work if they are including images or other materials that are not their own. Keep in mind that such clearance can at times be costly, and often takes time. The journal editor can often work with you to seek permissions if you need information, advice or assistance.