Emily Frost is paid $4.23 an hour, less than a third of the minimum wage in Australia.
But don’t expect her to complain about it. In fact, the 34-year-old cafe worker from Sydney is fighting AGAINST getting a pay rise.
And she’s not alone.
Emily Frost (pictured) has worked for Flagstaff for two-and-a-half years, and says her job has changed her life for the better
Ms Frost, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and suffers from anxiety and depression, is one of thousands of disabled people across Australia whose work capabilities are limited but who draw huge benefits from employment in addition to their pay.
She told Daily Mail Australia she was in a ‘big hole’ before she started working at Café Vizone, near Wollongong south of Sydney. She struggled to get out of bed, not seeing any reason why she should.
Two years on, she says she is happier, more confident and has a thriving social life.
Flagstaff, a disability enterprise, runs a collection of small businesses designed to give jobs to people who are not suited to ordinary employment.
Before she was employed by the disability enterprise, which employs disabled people for a percentage of the minimum wage, Emily says she was in a ‘big hole’
After her unsuccessful attempts to find work in open employment, the 34-year-old struggled to get out of bed, and said she saw no reason to get up in the morning
Employees are paid a percentage of the minimum wage based on the skills they have, with monetary value placed on TAFE certifications, which can be completed through the organisation, and even simple literacy.
The average wage at Flagstaff is $5.93 an hour, while the national minimum wage is $18.29 an hour.
AED legal centre, along with some unions, are currently gearing up to face off with Flagstaff and other disability enterprises, demanding the system they use to determine pay for their employees be changed.
The changes would result in massive pay rises for many, but also force the organisations which employ them to conduct mass layoffs – and in some cases, shut up shop completely.
Emily, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, depression, anxiety and problems with her short-term memory, told Daily Mail Australia she went to TAFE when she finished school, before unsuccessfully attempting to work in open employment.
‘I felt like I was some sort of ugly object, that they would just see me and put me in the corner,’ she said.
‘I didn’t want that.’
She says she felt she was being judged by people who hadn’t taken the time to get to know her
Having struggled to succeed in a regular work environment and feeling judged and incapable, Emily fell into what she describes as a ‘big hole’.
‘I was pretty much just in bed asleep, in a big hole, having nothing to wake up for,’ she said.
Her mother, Pat, said she would struggle to drag her daughter out of bed every day.
‘I’d have to go into her room at one or two o’clock in the afternoon and say ‘please Emily, get up. I’ve made a sandwich, but you’ve got to get out of bed to have the sandwich’,’ she said.
‘She’d eat that and go back to her room again – there was just nothing.’
Emily’s mother Pat (pictured) said she had to battle every day to get her daughter out of bed even just to eat lunch
Emily met with Flagstaff just weeks before she was able to start work, and was delighted to discover there was a cafe available for her to work in
Emily began to see a psychiatrist, who put her in touch with a mental health team, who then put her in touch with Flagstaff.
She told Daily Mail Australia everything changed at that point. Recounting the moment she discovered the organisation ran a cafe, the relief and excitement are still clearly visible on her face.
‘That was the perfect place,’ she said of Cafe Vizione, which serves employees of Bluescope Steel in Port Kembla.
‘Every day I go to work, I’m happy to go to work – it’s brilliant. It’s really great fun and I work with some really great people.’
Since starting at Cafe Vizione in Port Kembla, she has been working behind the till and in customer service, but has also been developing her skills in food preparation
Emily is fully supervised at work. She has someone constantly monitoring her but also constantly providing opportunities to learn and become more capable.
With a proud beam on her face, Emily explained she mostly worked behind the till or serving tables, but had been learning more about food preparation, which had in turn helped her to start cooking at home.
Roy Rogers, the CEO of Flagstaff, told Daily Mail Australia the organisation’s employees were strongly encouraged to develop their skills.
Flagstaff has a TAFE worker on site two days a week, working with employees to help them achieve a qualification in something relevant to their job, as well as several support workers.
He says Flagstaff aims to work as a pathway to open employment where possible, by preparing their employees for the work environment and helping them develop skills.
‘We’re a bit of a halfway house, an intermediate employer,’ he said.
‘A person with a disability can come and learn skills and gain confidence and transition to open employment.’
But many employees stay with Flagstaff – some who have been burned by open employment and have vowed never to return, and others who are simply not capable of making the jump.
Roy Rogers (right), the CEO of Flagstaff, says there are a multitude of opportunities for employees with a disability to learn new skills and acquire TAFE certifications, and while some move on to open employment, many don’t want to leave
Some choose to stay because the working environment is tailored for employees with a disability.
Flagstaff is understanding when employees struggle with changes at home, it advocates to Government departments when things like housing need addressing, and it provides a social fabric which breeds confidence and independence.
‘It’s not just about the money, it’s about the support and security,’ Mr Rogers said.
‘We’ve got people who have been here for 40 years.
‘One guy retired and came back – he’s only now just left and he’s 72 – because he had nowhere else to go.
‘Everybody said ‘you’ve got to retire’, but he didn’t play bowls, he didn’t play golf, he came to Flagstaff.
‘He came here in the morning and had breakfast, and he’d go home at night. This was his life, here were his friends.’
Emily’s family say they have seen a huge transformation in her, as she grows more independent and confident
From the moment she started work, Emily’s family say they watched her transform.
Her sister Sarah, who previously acted as a full-time carer for Emily, said watching her attempt to find work in open employment had been heartbreaking.
‘She’s gone out to places and come home saying ‘they’re judging me, Sarah, they’re not seeing me as a person’,’ she said.
Now Sarah says her big sister comes home from work with a confident grin on her face, saying she achieved something.
She says Emily has developed a newfound confidence and independence through her work, allowing Sarah to get a job and develop a life of her own, outside of her sister.
‘If I’m not there, or I’m away somewhere, I know she’ll be fine getting to work, coming home from work, and I don’t have to be there to make sure she doesn’t forget to leave the keys in the door,’ she joked.
‘She remembers these things now, and she’s having fun.’
Emily’s sister Sarah (left) has been able to work full time as she no longer needs to care for her Emily full time. The pair have moved into an apartment, and Sarah says her older sister is getting better at cooking
Pat says watching her two daughters mature and blossom leaves her teary-eyed, as Sarah joked Emily’s hectic social life means she is barely at home
Her mother Pat says the family’s lives have changed completely. Emily and Sarah have moved into an apartment together, giving Pat newfound freedom as well.
‘Sarah was always there caring for Emily, looking after her and doing things. But now Sarah has her own job, and they’ve both matured and just blossomed a lot,’ she said.
‘For me, just to see them like that, it makes me cry.’
The battle between disability organisations and AED Legal will face the Fair Work Commission in February next year.
AED are fighting for a Supported Wage System, which measures capability on a productivity benchmark.
If an employee can do their job quickly, they will be paid more than someone who can do perhaps a better job, or who has more qualifications, but works at a slower pace.
Mr Rogers says if the changes are made, many employees will receive massive pay rises, but the enterprises which employ them will become ‘unsustainable’, resulting in massive job cuts.
Sarah says her job isn’t about the money, it’s about having something to do and feeling valued
Flagstaff currently uses a wage assessment tool which determines an employee’s wage based on the skills they have, with monetary value placed on TAFE certifications and even basic literacy
Flagstaff, which employs 265 people, ‘will be forced to shut down’, he said.
Mr Rogers said the businesses run by Flagstaff are designed purely to provide ‘meaningful employment for people with disabilities’, and that most of them often run at a loss.
‘The best we hope for is to break even, or to do a little bit better than break even,’ he said.
‘We take on work that tends to not be all that technical, and with low margins, so it’s not that profitable, because we deconstruct a job, we pull it apart into lots of little pieces.
‘The jobs we take on, they have lots of people, but there are low margins, so they’re not that sustainable for anybody.’
He says the current assessment tool the organisation uses to determine wages encourages employees to strive for qualifications and new skills.
Mr Rogers says Flagstaff encourages employees to continue learning and developing
Emily works alongside other workers with a disability, but a fully able worker is present to help with any issues or questions she might have
Emily’s colleague Troy is all smiles at work, and is pictured wearing a shirt from a recent rally to garner community support for disability enterprises as they prepare to defend their wage assessment model
‘We love to pay people, but that’s not what this is about,’ he said.
‘It’s about making sure [disability enterprises] are sustainable and can employ 20,000 people nationally, but also in recognising skills, we’re giving a person something to strive for and achieve.
‘It goes towards making sure their value is recognised.’
Kairstien Wilson, the principal legal practicioner for the AED legal service, told Daily Mail Australia the supported wage scheme being proposed by the group will be more equitable and transparent.
Ms Wilson says in some cases, a disability enterprise has been unable to explain how they arrived at the wages given to a worker with a disability.
Kairstien Wilson, the principal legal practicioner for the AED legal service, told Daily Mail Australia the supported wage scheme being proposed by the group will be more equitable and transparent (pictured: Emily Frost at work for Flagstaff)
‘Each person has a right to know how their wage was calculated and understand the process,’ she said.
Ms Wilson identified problems with a series of wage assessment tools used by different organisations, noting some had a maximum percentage of the minimum wage that could be reached regardless of the employee’s skill or competency level, and others had no opportunity for workers to earn a pay rise.
‘These people are entitled to the money they should be earning,’ she said.
‘They’re working, they’re working hard.’
Ms Wilson said it was not certain employees would be receiving large pay rises under their proposed wage assessment tool, which would be rolled out around the country.
‘Some of them will get paid higher, and so they should, but for some it may remain the same and some may be assessed at a local rate because if you take into account what they’re doing, it’s not productive,’ she said,
The lawyer said the disability enterprises fighting the change had not produced any modelling or proof that this would be the case, but was unable to provide Daily Mail Australia with any modelling that showed it would not.
Mr Rogers says every 10 per cent increase in wages costs the organisation $385,000 a year.
‘It’s easy for people to say ‘oh, you’re exploiting people, you’re paying them a dollar an hour’, but that’s not the truth,’ he said.
‘Our goal for this year is to push the wage up to be more than $6. I’d love for it to be $10 or $12, but I know Flagstaff would collapse overnight.’
In addition to jobs and TAFE training, Flagstaff provide a social program and support workers to help their employees deal with issues, whether work-related or social, that may arise through the day.
At the moment, the average wage for Flagstaff employees is $5.93. As workers become better at their job, there is the potential to earn more, but Emily is able to work 24 hours a week and still get her full disability pension
If the wage assessment tool were to change, as is currently being suggested, many employees would receive massive pay rises, but it would be ‘unsustainable’ and would result in mass job cuts and the closure of some disability enterprises
‘What we do is so foreign and so different to any open-employment employer – it’s really hard for people to come to grips with,’ he said.
‘But we are here to provide a person with dignity of work, with socialisation, making and meeting friends, becoming a valued person and being valued, that’s the core of what we do.
‘The work then sort of just plugs in around the edges of that to create our value proposition or what we want to deliver for a person with a disability.
‘Flagstaff and a lot of other disability enterprises are not just a place where people come to work and go home, we become the whole social fabric of the person.’
Emily describes her position at Cafe Vizione as ‘more than a job’. At Flagstaff, Emily made friends who she regularly goes out with, and even met her boyfriend of nearly two years, Steven.
Employees are also given opportunities to attend social events with their colleagues, which helps to develop their independence and confidence, and fosters friendships
Emily is reluctant to take a day off work, whether for a holiday or a sick day, as she feels needed at the cafe
Pat says she has to ‘book in’ to see her daughter now, as between work, the boyfriend, and her social life, the 34-year-old is in high demand.
She joked trying to convince her daughter to take a sick day was like ‘pulling teeth’, and said Emily hadn’t taken any annual leave for two years.
‘I can’t get her to do it,’ she exclaimed.
‘She says ‘no, I’ve got to go to the cafe, they need me,’ and that’s what it is – they feel needed.’
Without her position at Flagstaff, Emily knows exactly where she would be.
‘If I lose my job,’ she says, ‘I’ll be back in that big hole.’
Emily is all smiles when she is at Flagstaff, but says she would be ‘back in that big hole’ if she was to lose her job