IWS Documented News INTERNATIONAL

IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies                 Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations          Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor                  Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016                      Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________

European Commission

Employing people with disabilities [30 November 2004]
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/news/2004/nov/disabilities_en.html

See also BACKGROUND INFORMATION at-
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/disability/index_en.html

Brussels, 30 November 2004. The European Commission is focusing this week on how to help people with disabilities find and keep jobs at a major conference in Brussels to mark the European Day of Disabled People on 3 December.

The two-day conference, to be addressed by Vladimir Spidla, the new European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, will look at the needs of disabled workers and the obstacles they face when looking for employment.

Disabled people from across the 25 Member States will join Commission officials, decision makers and experts to discuss ways of boosting the employment of disabled people under the Commission's action plan on equal opportunities for people with disabilities. They will look at issues including access to the built environment, new technologies that can empower disabled workers and life-long learning.

The conference, which the Commission is organising in cooperation with the European Disability Forum and which will be an annual event, follows last year's European Year of People with Disabilities, sponsored by the Commission, which showed that finding a job was not a direct option for most disabled people.

Figures show that 15.7 per cent of 16-64 year-olds in the EU-15 in 2002 had a long-term disability or health problem. This week's conference, on 2 and 3 December, will look at the conditions that must be created to help people with disabilities get onto the open labour market and stay in employment. The key to this is to combat discrimination against disabled people in employment and training under a new directive which was adopted in 2000 and was due to enter into force in the Member States by the end of last year.

AND MORE....

_____________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

****************************************
Stuart Basefsky                 *
Director, IWS News Bureau               *
Institute for Workplace Studies *
Cornell/ILR School                      *
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor            *
New York, NY 10016                      *
                                        *
Telephone: (607) 255-2703               *
Fax: (607) 255-9641                     *
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu                *
****************************************