Apr 302012
 

Please find below a letter written by Inclusion London, DPAC and allies to publically state our support for the Remploy workers in their opposition to the government’s decision to make them unemployed. If you would like to add your name or the name of your organisation to the letter please reply to ellenrclifford@btinternet.com.

 

30 April 2012

We believe the government’s decision to make 1,518 disabled workers unemployed by August, and a further 1,282 unemployed next year, by closing the Remploy factories is wrong. We do not believe these job losses constitute a victory for inclusion in the workplace.

We have fought long and hard for an inclusive society where disabled people have the same employment chances, choices, and opportunities as everyone else. Our goal and demand for inclusive employment must not be used to justify job cuts that will push these workers into poverty, exclusion, and isolation.

This decision will effectively put these disabled workers on the scrapheap at a time of recession when there is little to no hope of finding alternative employment, when eligibility for benefits is being slashed, and when support services for disabled people are being destroyed. Of the Remploy workers made redundant through the first round of factory closures in 2008 only 6% went on to find alternative employment.

Disabled people face systemic discrimination in the workplace even when the economy is at its strongest. In the current recession in areas where Remploy factories are located there are now on average 30 to 40 people chasing every job. The stark reality is that these disabled workers currently have little chance of finding alternative work, at a time when we are hearing about increasing numbers of disabled people who are taking their own lives in despair after loss of benefits.

The government argues that the factories are inefficient and unsustainable. They fail to mention the top-heavy non-disabled Remploy board and senior management strata; or the £1.8 million handed out in bonuses to Remploy bosses last year which could have been reinvested in the business. Remploy workers have been let down by non-disabled management who have run down their factories to ease the way for the closures.

The government says it is committed to inclusion and equality for disabled people but the facts suggest otherwise.  Its disregard for inclusion is evident from its education policy which promotes a return to segregated education. Its welfare policy represents an unprecedented and savage attack on disability equality that will make it more difficult for disabled people to contribute to society.

Disabled people are predicted to lose at the very least £9 billion in benefit entitlements over this Parliament. The Department for Work and Pensions’ own statistics put disability benefit fraud at no more than 0.5%. Proposals for reform of Disability Living Allowance will see 500,000 disabled people losing an essential benefit.  57% of disabled people in waged work on DLA have said in this situation they would be forced to give up work.

Likewise, the Access to Work programme for support for disabled people in mainstream employment has been shown to more than cover its costs in revenue gained by tax, paid by disabled people now in work, who couldn’t remain in their jobs without this support. Yet the reality is that disabled workers’ jobs are being threatened by Access to Work support being cut and restricted.

We reject the view that the way to respond to discrimination and exclusion in the workplace is through segregated employment, but we also reject the view that if we are against segregation we must go along with these job cuts and closures. We say no to any cuts that will push even more disabled people into poverty and isolation.

Equality and inclusion for disabled people will be achieved through commitment and investment in tackling discrimination in the workplace, and wider society, and by investing in the provision of support that enables disabled people to gain choice, control, and independence in our lives.

We the undersigned call for true equality and inclusion through:

  • The development of a plan of investment and support to transform the Remploy factories into viable social enterprises controlled by disabled employees rather than their closure.
  • Investment to increase and expand the Access to Work scheme so that it genuinely meets the needs of both disabled volunteers and workers. This extra funding must not come from the cuts to Remploy jobs.
  • Investment in high-quality employment support services that enable disabled people to find employment and stay in employment—not the free labour workfare schemes currently provided.
  • The right to inclusive education and accessible training and apprenticeships for all disabled people that will increase our chances of gaining and retaining meaningful employment.
  • Commitment to tackle discrimination in the workplace through better understanding and enforcement of Equality Act duties.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 22:33
Apr 302012
 

On 3rd May, representatives of corporate energy and politics will be meeting in London at the UK energy summit.

They want to keep on profiteering from fuel poverty, climate change, and trashing on the planet.

We can’t let them.

Come and take the power back.

 

 THE PLAN

Your day of action and your initial meeting place will be shaped by the bloc you join. Assemble at your bloc’s meeting point at 11am. Sign up to a bloc on the website to receive SMS text updates about action plans:

Dirty Energy Bloc

Dirty energy, dirty basslines and dirty business. Get down and dirty with us as we trash the planet in style!

Meet outside City Thameslink station (Ludgate Hill exit) at 11am.

 

Housing Bloc

For warm homes and community control. Join this bloc if you want to turn up the heat in your homes and turn up the heat on the greedy energy companies…

Meet outside Cannon Hill station at 11am.

 

Robin Hood Bloc

Join our merry band as we take the power from the Big Six Energy Barons and give it back to the people.

Meet outside St Paul’s tube station, 11am.

 

Fossil-Free Future Bloc

A family friendly bloc for a future free from fossil fuels. As climate change threatens life on earth join this bloc if you think that the Big Six Dinosaurs are the ones that ought to face extinction. Come and demonstrate for fair democratic, fair and clean alternatives to the prehistoric energy companies fuels and thinking…

Meet outside Tate Modern at 11am.

 

ACCESS

For any access needs send an SMS text or leave a message on 07432031610.

 

BRING:

Banners

Food and drink

Big chalks

Music, samba rhythms, and sound systems

Outdoor games

Your mates

 

THE REASONS:

  1. People not profit

We want to end the stranglehold that the Big Six Energy Companies have on this country. Corporate control of energy is unfair, insane and short sighted and always puts profits ahead of the needs of people and our environment: the Big Six’s profiteering is killing thousands each winter through fuel poverty and millions across the world through climate change.

  1. Climate justice

The Big Six energy companies, hand in hand with the government, and pushed by the mentality of growth capitalism, are destroying the climate and the lives of millions of people around the world. Climate justice means that those who have caused climate change should take responsibility for stopping it.

 

Disabled people and Climate Change

Disabled people are at particular risk of fuel poverty.  Government figures published last year showed that 2.75 million households living in fuel poverty were classed as “vulnerable” under a definition of vulnerable which could include an older person, a child or a disabled person within the household. Fuel poverty disproportionately affects disabled people: disabled people spend a greater proportion of their income on fuel because they are less likely to be employed and they also face additional costs of services, such as social care or mobility aids; through having less opportunities to be in employment disabled people spend a greater proportion of their time at home whilst cold environments can aggravate impairments, exacerbate respiratory problems and increase stress. The double suicide in November last year of disabled couple Mark and Helen Mullins was linked to fuel poverty as without income for heating the pair were forced to live in just one room of their home under increasingly worsening conditions. Fuel poverty affects the poorest; often the poorer you are the higher the fuel prices people tend to be as a result of unscrupulous landlords hiking up meter prices for personal profit.

 

Climate change can, and does, have a massive impact on disabled people across the world. The world’s poorest communities are most at risk from the violent weather conditions caused by climate change and disabled people make up a large percentage of those communities yet are least likely to have the resources to protect themselves. Problems experienced by disabled people on a day to day basis are magnified when there’s a natural disaster. Moreover natural disasters often leave more people disabled than they kill.

www.climatejusticecollective.org/bigsixenergybash

 Posted by at 19:28
Apr 232012
 

Jenny Morris is known for pushing forward disability equality and the right to independent living through her work as an independent policy analyst and disability researcher over many years. She advised the government on the Improving Life Chances of Disabled People Report (2005) and the Independent Living Strategic Review. Jenny is now retired and describes herself as now mainly spending her time gardening. She also writes a blog on current disability issues and authored the paper ‘Rethinking Disability Policy’ published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on November 2011 which challenges the disability movement to rethink our approaches and engage in wider economic and social debates in order to address the serious threat to disability rights we are currently facing.

Jenny, on your blog profile you have written “I used to spend my time using research and evidence to influence disability policy. I stopped doing that the week before the 2010 general election”. Was the timing co-incidence or by design?

The timing was by design but had both political and personal motivations.  I was working with the Office for Disability Issues, on the Right to Control, and I didn’t relish the thought of what would happen when Labour lost the election.  But mainly it was because I was going to be 60 a few months after the election and I wasn’t well.  I was in fact diagnosed with cancer a couple of months after I stopped work – so it was a good thing that I had stopped.  My blog is just a way of having a ‘rant in retirement’ and I am certainly spending more time gardening than anything else – because that’s what makes me happiest.

 

What in your view does the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill mean for disabled people?

 The Welfare Reform Bill is a disaster for disabled people.  It ratchets up still further the message – conveyed also by the previous Labour government – that people who can’t sell their labour are to be divided into the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ and disabled people into the ‘vulnerable’ and those who aren’t ‘really disabled’.  Things are particularly bad for people with impairments or illnesses which are not visible (such as mental illness) or not easily measured (particularly those accompanied by incapacitating levels of pain).  The Work Capability Assessment is based on assumptions that people’s own accounts of the restrictions they experience are not to be trusted and that the main barrier to getting employment is lack of ‘motivation’ and ‘welfare dependency’.  Conditionality and sanctions are based on the assumption that these are needed to ‘motivate’ people, when in fact the barriers to employment are primarily discrimination, lack of support and adjustments, and – most importantly – a lack of jobs. The whole system is predicated on the idea that the problem is the individual who needs to be ‘fixed’ rather than a dysfunctional economy and widespread discrimination.

 

You have written about the need for the welfare state to uphold disabled people’s rights. How do you think the campaign for choice and control over our own lives has undermined the welfare state and how can we redress this?

The independent living movement was clear that ‘independence’ means having choice and control over the support needed to go about your daily life – a defining part of autonomy and self-determination.  At the same time, we were clear that the provision of support required adequate levels of funding, funding which could only come from redistribution of resources through taxation.  However, direct payments were supported by the Conservative government in the mid-1990s because they fitted in with the idea of a minimalist state, with purchasing power being the route to a good quality of life, and with a reduction in services delivered by public bodies.  It’s no accident that the local authorities that were the slowest to adopt direct payments were those where Labour councillors and trade unions were concerned to protect the jobs of homecare workers, and who saw direct payments as a form of privatisation.    

 It’s undoubtedly true that the development of direct payments and now individual/personal budgets is part and parcel of the marketisation of support services – as is the current piloting of personal health budgets.  But this doesn’t mean we should abandon the idea of choice and control rather that we have to, at the same time, be clear that having choice and control also depends on the level of resources available and that we have to therefore argue for a level of funding, and the kind of welfare state, which creates a level playing field for disabled people.

 However, as I said in my JRF Viewpoint, in order to make the case for this we have to move beyond a focus on disability policy and address the dysfunctional ways in which our economy is currently configured and what kind of taxation system would support a strong welfare state.  We also need to promote democratically accountable ways of developing and delivering benefits and services.

 

You were involved in writing the 2005 Government report, ‘ Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People’ while working for the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit which aimed at achieving full equality for disabled people. Any regrets?

 No I don’t have any regrets about my involvement with the Life Chances report – though of course it didn’t go far enough and a lot of the progress which was made is now being rolled back.  However, it was the first time the government formally adopted the social model of disability and the chapter on independent living set out some important principles and commitments – even if they didn’t go as far as I would have liked.  The report prompted the setting up the Office for Disability Issues, which has a remit to ‘champion equality for disabled people’ across government.  It also prompted the Life Opportunities Survey, a longitudinal survey which will be used to measure progress towards full citizenship for disabled people.  And it resulted in the Independent Living Strategy published in 2008, which I also worked on, and which was followed by the Right to Control.  As with the Life Chances report, the ILS established some commitments which might prove useful to the disability movement – for example a commitment to review the need for legislation on a right to independent living if significant progress has not been made by 2013.

 

What threat does the closure of the Independent Living Fund present for disabled people?

The closure of the ILF means that people who previously could have hoped to have the type and level of support they need to have the kind of life non-disabled people take for granted, will no longer have this.  It’s highly unlikely that local authorities will make up the shortfall.  It’s true that the ILF was an anachronism – in that it was a national system which met needs which were otherwise, for people with lower levels of need, met through locally funded social services.  When we were working on Life Chances, we tried imagining a system which would deliver independent living and it became obvious that the ILF was closer to doing that than the current set-up with local social services.  The closure of the ILF is therefore not only a disaster for those individuals who won’t now get access to it, it’s also a significant step backwards in terms of developing a funding system which could really deliver choice and control for disabled people.

 

You have shown how government has misappropriated the language of disabled people’s rights to push through their own measures. I cannot count how many times I have heard Maria Miller (mis-) spouting the social model of disability in speeches recently. Is it a deliberate subversion of the social model and the radical societal change it calls for or an opportunistic exploitation of popular ideology?

It’s both isn’t it?  This government has colonised our language to promote their policy that paid work is the only route to being a full citizen.  Like many, I find politicians’ use of social model language deeply offensive. Our identification of disabling barriers and campaigns against discrimination have been distorted by a government which is primarily motivated by a desire to cut public expenditure and to bring about a fundamental reduction in the welfare state. When disabled people said that they wanted the right to work, we meant that we wanted the right not to be discriminated against and to the support and adjustments required to make employment possible.  We didn’t mean that we wanted a society where it’s literally survival of the fittest, where people’s accounts of the restrictions they face are assumed to be at best exaggerated and at worst downright lies.

 

You worked with government for many years. What are the key challenges for disabled people in the years ahead and how do you think we can best protect our rights against this current onslaught?

As with all engagement with government policy, it’s often a case of inching forward in terms of making progress and sometimes that progress is then rolled back.  I think it’s important that we remain clear that tackling disabling barriers and promoting choice and control are the key things to equal citizenship for disabled people.  And that people with impairments and/or long-term health problems have additional support needs which have to be met in order to access their human and civil rights.  I also think we shouldn’t be colluding in the identification of who is ‘vulnerable’ and therefore deserving of state support (in the form of benefits and services). The concept of vulnerability is part of the ideology which says that only those who are most ‘dependent’ have a legitimate claim on public resources. It undermines the idea that ‘independence’ is about having choice and control over the support you need to go about your daily life, and instead promotes the idea that to be ‘independent’ you have to not rely on the state or other people for support.

I do remember someone saying, during the campaigns for anti-discrimination legislation 30 years ago, that we should be careful what we wished for – that disabled people might experience a backlash.  The argument was that, although disabled people experienced discrimination and segregation they also experienced generally ‘benevolent’ attitudes and that, if disability was seen as a rights issue, people might take a less ‘caring’ attitude towards us. While I think that was a spurious argument (as spurious as when we were told that feminists should wait until the revolution before expecting gender equality!), I do think that our success in defining disability as a human and civil rights issue has at the same time lifted the lid off the prejudice that is very deeply embedded in social attitudes towards impairment and difference.  But it’s really important we don’t respond to the current situation by emphasising how ‘vulnerable’ disabled people are, but instead keep putting the case for disability to be seen as a human and civil rights issue – and continue campaigning for the kind of society which promotes the human and civil rights of all its citizens.

My point about needing to move out of just focussing on disability policy and instead also address wider issues relating to the economy and the welfare state, means that the disability movement needs to engage with and build alliances with other campaigns and groups.  Unfortunately, many other politically active people, and writers and academics, do not understand the social model of disability and its implications.  And yet I think our analysis, experiences and struggles are so relevant to other issues of inequality and injustice.  While things seem very bleak at the moment, this is largely because of the current economic crisis – and the one thing this illustrates is that the way our economy, and the global economy, is currently configured is unsustainable.  Disabled people were not part of the decision-making processes which went into developing our current welfare state; we need to ensure we are at the heart of the development of progressive alternatives to the current crisis.  That is the only way that we will ever have a society which protects and promotes our human and civil rights.

Rethinking Disability Policy by Jenny Morris: https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/disability-policy-equality-summary.pdf

Follow Jenny’s blog: https://jennymorrisnet.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 Posted by at 15:51
Apr 222012
 

At a meeting called by DPAC on 19th April 2012 to discuss the issues for the disabled people’s movement in opposing the closure of Remploy factories, Tracey Lazard, Chief Executive of Inclusion London, London’s leading Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisation, called on disabled people to unite in opposing the government’s cynical decision to snatch employment from thousands of disabled workers.

Over 30 disabled people and allies attended the meeting held at the University of London Union to build support from the disability people’s community for the national Remploy demonstration which took place on 20th April and the meeting called by Unite for 26th April. The meeting represented the first time the disabled people’s movement has openly discussed the complex and controversial issues which the Remploy dispute touches on and which have led to the stigma which still largely surrounds support for the Remploy workers from within the movement. However, whilst some disabled people are publically quoted as celebrating the closures as a victory for disability equality, DPAC has criticised the closures and the lack of any form of worker/user- led alternative which was proposed in the Sayce report.

Lazard explained Inclusion London’s position in opposing the factory closures and how this is in no way an endorsement of segregated employment. At a time of recession when non-disabled people cannot find jobs and when benefit cuts are pushing genuine disabled claimants off benefits and into poverty, it is irresponsible to remove meaningful employment from thousands of disabled people. The Sayce Report recommended investing money saved from the factory closures in Access to Work, the government programme that funds support for disabled people in mainstream employment, but with continuing cuts and restrictions to Access to Work, it is evident that the closures have nothing to do with building an inclusive society and are nothing more than yet another a cynical attempt to save money by targeting the most disadvantaged members of the community. Rob Murthwaite, DPAC national steering committee, spoke out about the need to nail the lie that this dispute is about disabled people’s equality.

There was debate around the need for segregated workplaces and also about the best way to effectively support the Remploy workers in their dispute. There was unanimous agreement that the Remploy workers have been mismanaged by non-disabled people with senior managers taking home 1.8 million in bonuses in 2011 while the factory floor were under a pay restraint. There was a strong feeling that government should have invested in reforming the factories according to user led models so that the expertise of the workers could be utilised in establishing viable, sustainable enterprises. Questions were raised about figures given out by the government purportedly showing the unsustainability of the factories. There was also consensus that on the core disabled people’s principle of nothing about us without us, the movement needs to listen and respect the voices of the workers. Those voices say no to factory closures so we need to respect that and support the workers in their self-determined struggle.

John McDonnell MP spoke about the grim prospects for the thousands of disabled Remploy workers set to lose their jobs. In areas with Remploy factories the ratio of people chasing each job is 30-40: 1 which is far higher than average. After losing their income from employment the workers will face serious difficulty in obtaining enough income to survive from welfare benefits as the system is ever tightened and the government moves ahead with proposals to replace DLA with PIP and in so doing remove 20% of claimants. He spoke about work he is involved in joint with PCS to document cases where coroners have directly linked deaths to the loss of benefits.

The meeting agreed actions in support for the Remploy workers to include a letter from DPAC and Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations to the press opposing the factory closures, support for the meeting called by Unite on 26th April and participation in the demonstration on 20th April.

 

SAVE REMPLOY – PUBLIC MEETING THURSDAY 26TH APRIL 6.30 – 8.30 PM AT FARADAY HOUSE 48-51 Old Gloucester Street London , WC1N 3AE (Opposite Unite’s Holborn Office car park)

 

Tracey Lazard’s presentation:Remploy presentation – IL

Apr 222012
 

SAVE REMPLOY –  PUBLIC MEETING
THURSDAY 26TH APRIL 6.30 – 8.30 PM
AT
FARADAY HOUSE

48-51 Old Gloucester Street
London, WC1N 3AE
(Opposite Unite’s Holborn Office car park)

 

As a result of the damning Sayce Report on funding for disabled workers last year Remploy has announced the closure of 36 of its 54 factories. The first closures are imminent; and the remaining 18 will be forced to shut by the end of 2013 if they cannot reduce the subsidy for per disabled factory worker.

THERE WILL NOT BE ANY ‘BIG’ NAMES ON THE TOP TABLE
THIS MEETING IS LED BY REMPLOY WORKERS PRESENT AND PAST
WE’VE LISTENED TO WHAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO SAY ON THE CLOSURES…

NOW COME AND HEAR WHAT THE REMPLOY WORKERS HAVE TO SAY!

Join us in the fight to save Remploy

Apr 222012
 

It’s vital funding which we need to help thousands of people with their benefit appeals

DPAC wants to thank Nick @Mylegalforum once more for letting us post this to DPAC

What we need people to do is contact their local or representative peer in the House of Lords by Monday April 23rd when the legal aid (LASPO) bill goes back to the House of Lords. It’s also worth contacting your MP as they can speak with Peers.

The best links we can find are here..

https://www.writetothem.com/lords

https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-a-lord/lord/

It’s really easy via the ‘write to them’ link, just enter in your area (Town or County) and it will locate you a ‘peer’ in the House of Lords.

We need as many Peers as possible to be contacted by Monday. Don’t worry too much about the legal aid bill not being their specialist area or which political party they represent (some ‘cross bench’ peers belong to no particular party).

The aim is to contact them to show how much it matters to you.

The site helps you draft your email (you could use my template in next post) or you can write your own. When its ready just copy (by pressing ‘CTRL’ and ‘C’ on your keyboard) then paste into the dialogue box on the ‘write to them’ site’ (by pressing ‘CTRL’ and ‘V’).

You can find out the full list of peers who voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ via the links here (it was then listed as amendment 11)

https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=601

If you need convincing that welfare benefit specialists don’t just fill in forms read this..

https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?a….read=649&page=1

Here’s how people end up winning their benefit appeals with legal aid

https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frontline&action=display&thread=558

It’s very easy!
& very important, here’s why…

For the last 12 years many CAB and law centres have been funded by legal aid and some are very reliant on it because they specialise in areas of law like welfare benefits. The Government has voted to axe this funding which means around 135,000 people per year will no longer be able to get specialist help from paid professionals who win around 75% of their cases. For each case their organisation gets paid a fixed fee of just 150 regardless of how long it takes to complete.

The Tribunals judiciary has predicted that the welfare reforms will result in over 2.5 million people appealing for their benefits between 2010 and 2015; the current figures are seeing a huge increase in appeals – the highest ever. Many people do not realise how vital this funding is to people, especially the disabled. Government has chosen to make savings of 16 million at a time when the need of this help could not be greater, they expect people to fight their cases on their own without help. The Lords have already voted heavily to keep this funding but government says no, they have asked the Lords’ to agree with them – you could make all the difference by persuading them to say ‘NO’.
Read more: https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=654&page=1#1530#ixzz1smPFP5sQ

 

Apr 212012
 

Politicians of all parties have rightly paid tribute to Jack Ashley after his death on 20th April aged 89. Not one of them mentioned the fact that he tirelessly pushed for an Independent Living Bill. These very same politicians blocked, delayed and ran out of time on dates at which this bill was to go through readings.  The Independent Living Bill set out the basics that disabled people should be entitled to, to ensure real independent living. When I spoke to him in 2008 on behalf of the European Network on Independent Living he said:

My Bill on independent living is designed to sweep away the scandalously inadequate system of services for disabled people and to replace it with one which is based on freedom, choice, control and participation. At present, independent living is a mirage. Consequently, the present system means there are very few rights to services. For example, the very notion that the right to merely being washed and fed provides independence is bizarre. These conditions mean that disabled people have to fight for every concession rather than have services provided as of right.

Today, disabled people have no rights in their choice of where they live and who they live with, no legal entitlement to advocacy, no right to communication support and equipment, no right to portable support. They are trapped in a system which is slow, cumbersome and inflexible.

The Bill sets out clear principles for the delivery of support to disabled people and their families. For the first time social care, health and housing support will have a clear purpose set out in law. This would guarantee disabled people the services they are deprived of today.

Every disabled person would be guaranteed minimum outcomes which would focus on delivering the means to live an ordinary life, rather than the current “feed and clean” only culture.

Disabled people would be supported to define their own needs through self-assessment which would save time and money. Disabled people would have new rights to communication support and equipment, to independent advocacy, to support mental health needs and to palliative care and rehabilitation. This is merely the flavour of the Bill and there are many detailed proposals, all of which combine to present a very different picture of independent living from todays. This Bill has the potential to transform the lives of millions of disabled people in Britain. They are entitled to it and it is up to us, working together, to provide it.”

He also said

Throughout my Parliamentary career, I have fought for all disabled people to have the same choice, dignity, freedom and control as every other citizen. These are the central principles of ‘Independent Living’.

One politician who will be sadly missed

See: https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/21/labour-peer-lord-ashley-dies?newsfeed=true

Debbie Jolly

 

Apr 182012
 

 

Starting at Leicester Sq

 

Disabled people came from different parts of the country and assembled at Leicester Square and moved off towards Trafalgar Square. It started raining intermittently. Police accompanied us and were not happy that we were on the road. They tried to get information and we heard them asking what were our plans but none of us spoke to them.

Arriving at Trafalgar Square, 2 groups of wheelchair users split up and block up two junctions. Police tried to get us off the street while activists chanted and voiced their protests.

 
In the pouring rain the activists stayed put inspite of the police trying to move us on and the drummers kept spirits up while we chatted and handed out post cards to passer bys.

drummers

the Scottish contingent

Time went by very quicky and we decided to finish at 4pm and ended then. Thank you everybody for making it such a success! Rights not Charity!

More photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/disabledpeopleprotest/sets/72157629847654023/with/6945227156/

https://www.demotix.com/news/1162942/disabled-people-against-cuts-demonstration-held-london

More news from the Guardian https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/18/disability-benefits-cuts-protest-trafalgar-square?CMP=twt_gu

from Harpy Marx https://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/todays-block-the-road/

from Johny Void https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/disabled-protesters-bring-traffic-chaos-to-central-london/

DPAC is on twitter : @dis_ppl_protest

and on Face Book under :DPAC

Apr 152012
 

with many thanks to nick @Mylegalforum for letting us repost see Mylegalforum for more

Here’s how Clarke’s proposals will affect many lives if the Government gets its way this Tuesday – you can kiss goodbye to legal aid for all this..

Clarke is opposing…

(1) A clearer definition of his functions (1)

(2) Access to legal services for domestic violence victims (2)

(3) A better definition of the distinction between him and his director of legal services, but he is putting forward a counter proposal for individual cases which he proposes imposes ‘independence’ (3 & 4 replaced)

(4) Any legal help for welfare benefit work up to first – tier tribunal level (168)

(5) Has made a concession on welfare benefits in the upper tribunal & higher courts which needs to be treated with some degree of caution until its full legal effect is known (169 & 240)

(6) Experts report in clinical negligence cases (170)

(7) Face to face advice – he wants the telephone gateway (24)

(8) Exceptions in respiratory /industrial disease or illness cases (31)

(9) Exceptions in Industrial disease cases where breach of duty by employer (32)

(10) Access to a legal services for a wider number of children (171)

(11) Access to legal services in clinical negligence cases in instances which took place when the victim was a child (172)

Nor is he giving much on domestic violence provisions with the additional opposition of amendments 192 to 196 (excluding 195)

In summary – he’s gone against the Lords on almost everything with some tinkering to suit his government’s aims & a meaningless concession on Upper Tribunal & higher court work in welfare benefit cases which is unlikely to benefit advice agencies given the low number of cases when the bigger problem they face is helping clients with the tsunami of benefits appeals at First Tier level – set to increase to 644,000 appeals per year according to the Tribunal judiciary!

Contact your MP – there are many links to different ways of doing so on the internet. We’ve put one here…

https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?a….643&page=1#1503

YOU NEED TO ACT TODAY – TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE!

Read more: https://mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=646&page=1#1513#ixzz1s8s0SPOI

 

Apr 152012
 

Sian Griffiths is a local Brent resident, firefighter and now candidate for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the upcoming elections.

Sian was awarded the Queens Fire Service Medal (QFSM)  and one of only 2 women to have ever received the award, in Nov 2010 but 2 days later was then suspended for supporting the Fire Brigades Union’s industrial action against the proposed sacking of 5000 firefighters and she was subsequently disciplined and demoted. She is pursuing her case through an Employment (industrial) tribunal next month (May).  Sian is a parent and also active within her local community in Willesden and is the Chair of Queens Park Community School (QPCS) Parent, Teachers, Friends Association (PTFA). It is exactly this kind of worker that TUSC wants to see representing ordinary people instead of the usual high polished career politicians.

TUSC is a coalition of unions, activists and like minded people commited to opposing “all cuts” on the basis that money is plentiful at the tops of society and just needs to be shared out. All candidates stand by this pledge. TUSC represents an alternative to the 3 main parties which represent the millionaires instead it stands for the millions. We enjoy the backing of the RMT Union nationally and FBU in London.
BRENT MEETING

7.30pm Tuesday 24th April
Rising Sun, 25 Harlesden Road, NW10 2BY(behind Willesden Green library)

Speakers are TUSC candidates:
Sian Griffiths, Fire Brigades Union
Martin Powell-Davies, National Executive of teachers union NUT
Mick Dooley, construction activist
Gary MacFarlane, Tottenham community activist

Apr 152012
 

Guest Blog by Frances Trevena a member of Young Legal Aid Lawyers.

It is common knowledge that Government plans to reduce the costs of public services are having a severe impact across society. This austerity plan is having a disproportionate impact on disabled people. It affects benefits, services provided both centrally and from Local Authorities and even basic community amenities that disabled people rely on. It is also affecting access to justice across a range of legal areas.

When you might need Legal Aid

 The effect on access to justice will be particularly profound for disabled people. It may seem that it will not affect the vast majority of people, yet legal advisors in solicitors’ firms, citizens advice bureaux and law centres offer assistance to huge numbers of people who have lost out on benefits – including those who are wrongly assessed as able to work. They also help those who have problems at work, with their families or their homes. But this help is under threat if the Government gets its way on a law about to go before MPs. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (also known as the Legal Aid Bill) sets out Government plans to cut free advice for many types of legal problems.

Physically limiting access

People can currently access legal help in a variety of ways including visiting solicitors’ offices, telephoning a helpline or being referred by advice agencies to specialist services. All of these are designed to assist someone to find a solicitor and calculate whether they are eligible for Legal Aid. The Government has set out proposals to remove the option of face-to-face appointments and require anyone seeking Legal Aid to first contact a telephone advice gateway. The aim would be that this would act as “triage” and filter out those who did not require face-to-face legal advice. Disabled people in particular have seen how many of these contracted-out services are run to the detriment of their users. DPAC have written about the fiasco caused by ATOS carrying out assessments and the issue of benefit cuts.

The Government has now conceded in the face of their own evidence that it would be inappropriate to include Community Care law as part of the initial trial. However, plans remain in place for other areas of Legal Aid law to be accessed through the telephone gateway. The first areas of law to be affected are debt, discrimination and special educational needs. The House of Lords changed the Legal Aid Bill so that the Government would not be able to set-up this mandatory telephone gateway. However, the Government can overturn this amendment when the Legal Aid Bill goes back to the House of Commons on 17 April.

Welfare benefits

The Government wants to remove all welfare benefits advice from the Legal Aid scheme. The House of Lords took a strong stance against this following the Welfare Reform Bill and the increasing pressure to force people onto work programmes. They have changed the Legal Aid Bill so that Legal Aid will continue to be available for appeals against Department for Work and Pension decisions. However, the House of Commons can overturn this amendment when they debate the Legal Aid Bill again on 17 April.

Other areas of law

The areas of law affected by the Legal Aid Bill are huge. If the Government is able to push the legislation through Parliament, then most people will either have to pay to see a lawyer or go without justice. This is particularly important to anyone who is likely to need a solicitor: whether through problems at home, with family or at work. Most likely to affect disabled people are:

 

–          Clinical Negligence claims: the removal of Legal Aid in gathering reports will mean that before a case is even begun, you will need to fund an expert report.

–          Employment: the Government is seeking to prevent someone from even having an initial publicly funded session with a Legal Aid lawyer. This has greater impact for disabled people, because they are most likely to face prejudice and harassment at work and discrimination in even getting in to work.

–          Housing: Legal Aid will fund only those who are at risk of losing their homes, even where initial advice and assistance could prevent this from happening. This is particularly important if you are living in a home where adaptations have been made for ease of mobility.

Where to, then?

 If the Government proposals go ahead, then those who are no longer eligible for Legal Aid will be seeking access to justice from charities and the not-for-profit sector. However many charities and citizens advice bureaux are facing cuts in funding, not only from a loss of Legal Aid, but also from a reduction in external funding and particularly funds from Local Authorities who are withdrawing their support for services considered non-essential.

It is of particular concern that where advice centres remain they will not necessarily have specialist staff who will be able to deal with specific problems. For disabled people, whose needs are often more complex and intersect a number of different areas, this is worrying.

A recent report from the Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) has highlighted that faced with these cuts and nowhere else to turn people are likely to turn to their MPs to provide assistance. Of the MPs interviewed by YLAL a third of MPs spend somewhere between 50-75% of their time dealing with the issues of their constituents. To make matters worse, at the moment, MPs can refer these cases on to law firms and legal advice organisations if specialist, expert advice is required. Seventy-one per cent of MPs and caseworkers interviewed by YLAL had referred constituents to a legal adviser in the six months preceding the study.

Act now to save Legal Aid

Having faced some amendments to the Bill, which were largely positive in the House of Lords, the Bill is now returning for final consideration in the House of Commons on 17 April 2012. Now is your final chance to have your say and to lobby your MP to act on your behalf.

If you are concerned about the impact of the legal aid cuts on you, and on wider society, please take time to write to your MP urging them to vote for amendments to the Bill. Send them YLAL’s report (find a copy here) or Justice for All’s report on the challenges facing law centres and Citizens Advice Bureaux (available here). A quick link to a letter to your MP is here. Please spread the word now – we only have a few days left to save legal aid.

Frances Trevena is a member of Young Legal Aid Lawyers.

Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) is a group of lawyers who are committed to practising in those areas of law, both criminal and civil, that have traditionally been publicly funded. YLAL members include students, paralegals, trainee solicitors, pupil barristers and qualified junior lawyers based throughout England and Wales. We believe that the provision of good quality publicly funded legal help is essential to protecting the interests of those with least in society and upholding the rule of law.

Website: https://www.younglegalaidlawyers.org/

Email: ylalinfo@googlemail.com

 

Apr 142012
 

Independent Living Fund

The closure of the Independent Living Fund to new applicants is denying essential independent living support to many disabled people. The government is saying that support provided by the Independent Living Fund is available through personal budgets and Direct Payments from local authorities but this is simply not true. If you have been adversely affected by the changes to the ILF  and would be interested in taking a legal challenge against it please contact Linda on 01926 842253 / 07714927533.

 Posted by at 14:05
Apr 132012
 

Protest at Grayling


“Policy Exchange is hosting a major full day conference looking at the future of the labour market and welfare and skills policy in the UK. The key theme will be how the employment and skills agendas could be coordinated to ensure that unemployment is reduced and that the labour market meets the needs of business in the future. The day will be a great opportunity to hear the views of expert speakers and for businesses, policy makers, politicians and academics to get together to discuss these vital issues.”
Keynote speakers include Minister for Workfare Chris Grayling.
This is on the day the latest unemployment figures are released. It is estimated that over the summer 100,000 public sector will lose their jobs.
Protest at the Policy Exchange conference
9am, Wednesday 18th April, Microsoft, 80-100 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, SW1E 5JL

DPAC protest

Action will be around benefit cuts, care funding and Loss of Remploy jobs.
April 18th meet for 1.30 pm McDonalds Leicester Square.

Remploy Not For Sale

After previous rounds of closures at Remploy, which provides work for thousands of disabled people, the Tories plan to finish the job. Of the 54 remaining workplaces 36 have already received 90 days notice of closure on Monday 19 March.

 Norwich demonstration
GMB and Unite, the unions for Remploy workers, will hold a demonstration in Norwich on Saturday 14th April.
 10am to 1pm, Saturday 14th April
Hay Hill, Opposite Primark, 7-9 Haymarket Norwich,Norfolk NR2 1QD
 

Public Meeting – Fight the Remploy Closures
Thursday 19 April – 7.30pm
The Venue, ULU, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY

Speakers include:
John McDonnell MP – Chair Right to Work campaign; Gail Cartmail – Unite Assistant General Secretary; Les Woodward – GMB National Convenor of Remploy; Rob Murthwaite – Disabled People Against Cuts
Download the meeting leaflet .

Fight Remploy Closures meeting – April 19

 National Demonstration – Friday 20 April 2012

Lobby the DWP in Sheffield – The campaign to save Remploy factories continues
Assemble 12.30 for a 1pm start outside the Department of Work and Pensions office in Sheffield (Steel City House) at the junction of West Street, Church Street and Tripit Lane.
Rally and March to the Town Hall

Called by UNITE

Petition
Sign the petition to save Remploy factories and send cheques payable to ‘The Remploy Fighting Fund’ to: Phil Davies, Manufacturing Section, GMB National Office, 22-24 Worple Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 4DD

Tell Richard Branson … Keep Virgin profiteering out of our NHS!

London Keep Our NHS Public groups are targeting Virgin stores and gyms for a weekend of protests on 21st / 22nd April
 
 

London May Day March

Tuesday 1st May, 11am
Clerkenwell Green, EC1R 0DU
March to Trafalgar Square

Join the Caravan for Climate Jobs: 12th – 25th May 2012

  •    Fighting for a million new jobs
  •   Fighting the threat of catastrophic climate change
The CLIMATE JOBS CARAVAN – backed by a number of national unions and campaign groups – is a 2000 mile campaign tour of towns and cities to promote the ONE MILLION CLIMATE JOBS REPORT and raise public discussion of how jobs lost in your locality can be replaced through the creation of the new industries and services that we need to ensure an environmentally sustainable future.
The Caravan goes on the road on 12 May. It will be greeted by meetings and other public events in dozens of localities where jobs are currently being shed. Join it when it arrives near you.
May 23rd advance warning Lord Freud at National Housing Federation event explaining the need for Welfare abolition. 
Apr 112012
 

by Holmey

via social warriors

In view of the welfare reforms that the ConDem’s have forced through parliament, reforms that are forcing many sick and disabled people deep into poverty and misery, it’s time to tell the DWP what we feel, where we think they are driving society, with you being invited to download and complete the DWP Euthanasia Assistance Form below and asked to post it off to –

 

Euthanasia Assistance Scheme

The Ministers

Department of Works and Pensions

Caxton House

Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9DA

Next Tuesday or Wednesday, (17th/18th April), so that they get deluged with them on Thursday & Friday, perhaps having to work over the weekend to clear the mail backlog – Hopefully get to the attention of the decision makers.

A couple more websites I know are also hosting this campaign, and if you’re seeing it for the first time and have a website, please feel free to copy it. I’ll notify what media contacts I have, if everybody else makes a noise out of it, it may get some much needed publicity for what’s going on.

Also, on the Friday, (21st), perhaps you would like to emulate Stuart on his excellent recording (on social warriors’ web site)

Let’s shout out loud, give them all something to think about over the weekend.

Copy and paste this URL into your browser to get form and info:
https://socialwarriors.co.uk/2012/04/atos-dwp-disability-euthanasia-assistance-scheme-protest/

Apr 092012
 

In conversation with Tony Benn: 2pm-4.30pm, Sat 12 May: Tony Benn chats with John McDonnell MP and Owen Jones, author of “Chavs”. A unique chance to hear & question three leading  British socialists from different generations.

We Can Afford Welfare AND Housing! 2pm-4.30pm Sat 19 May: The world’s 7th richest economy, surely Britain has sufficient resources to fund the welfare state and provide decent housing for all?  Teresa Pearce MP, Andy Winter (Brighton Housing Trust) & Andrew Fisher (LRC & LEAP) discuss if we lack money or will.

United We Stand: Tackling Racism 7pm-9.30pm, Tues 22 May: As massive spending cuts threaten all communities, some seek to scapegoat ethnic minorities, refugees and migrants.We discuss how to stay united and fight racism, hatred and prejudice.  With Jeremy Corbyn MP, Mark Serwotka (PCS), Zita Holbourne (PCS & BARAC), Stafford Scott, Michael Abatan (Justice for Jay), Nic Eadie (Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group), and Chris Whitwell (Friends, Families & Travellers).

Defend Welfare and Pensions: 7pm-9.30pm, Tues 12 June 2012: The Coalition cuts taxes for the rich but ignores mass unemployment and deliberately increases poverty by attacking welfare benefits. John McDonnell MP, Dot Gibson (National Pensioners Convention), Ellen Clifford (Disabled People Against Cuts) & Thierry Schaffauser (GMB-IUSW) discuss what we can do to change government policies. We won’t pay for their crisis! So what else can be done?

Venue for all events: Brighthelm Church & Community Centre, at the top of North Road, Brighton BN1 1YD.                                

Full disability access.

Doors open: 20 minutes before advertised start time for all events.

 Fringe tickets: £10 waged/£5 concessions per event during May.

£25 waged/ £12.50 concessions for all 3 Brighton Fringe events.

June event: £2 waged/£1 concessions (bigger donations welcomed!)

www.l-r-c.org.uk

Twitter.com/LRCinfo

Email: sussexlrc@hotmail.co.uk

Facebook.com/sussexclrc

 Posted by at 22:31
Apr 082012
 

One of the main advocates of the bio-psychosocial model, Lord Freud (Westminster’s Minister for welfare reform) claims that it is based on evidence. It is not. It is a right wing model led by profit and the market. It incorporates the worst aspects of neo-liberalism. It targets disabled people and ridiculously claims that we can think ourselves out of being disabled. Its underlying theme repeats the mantra that ‘work will set you free’. But this is not about work, despite the endless rhetoric; this model is an ideological cover for attacking disabled people and reducing every single right to financial support that has been achieved. Additional fringe benefits are provided to the insurance market of Unum, to the profits of Atos and to the big Disability Charities who all capitalise on the new notions of risk being imposed on disabled people. We can identify a clear pattern for the construction of the bio-psychosocial model, and its advocates. It features:

●‘Academics’ in the pay of the insurance company Unum

●The genesis of the Work Capability Assessment guided by Unum and Atos,

●Atos’ imposition of mass reassessments

● Successive governments

●Key players in the Department of Work and Pensions

● The big Disability Charities.

We can also identify a clear pattern for the construction and advocates of the social model of disability. The story features disabled activists some of whom  were institutionalised in a Leonard Cheshire home, disabled academics, disabled activists and disabled peoples’ organisations and groups run and controlled by disabled people who led the political challenges to individual models of disability and who continue to do so.  Which model seems better so far?

While successive governments were delivering a stream of white papers apparently dedicated to improving the life chances of disabled people the revenge of the bio-psychosocial model and welfare reform (read welfare destruction) was quietly being prepared behind our backs by the state and their market partners. The following explains why some disability campaigners were and are wrong to abandon the social model of disability and how the rhetoric behind the bio-psychosocial model is one of the keys to understanding the 21st century ideological attacks on disabled peoples’ lives.

Part One

The Social Model of Disability Basics: why it’s nothing to do with the bio-psychosocial model

The social model came into being through a letter to the Guardian from Paul Hunt[1], the early work of UPIAS (Union of Physically Impaired against Segregation) a document written by Vic Finkelstein[2] and other activists. They were institutionalised in a Leonard Cheshire institution. The UPIAS document and its premise were taken forward in the 1980s and 1990s by disabled activists and academics including Mike Oliver[3] and Colin Barnes[4]. Paul Abberley[5] also produced a seminal piece on  ‘The Concept of Oppression and the Development of a Social Theory of Disability’. The social model of disability was also taken forward by activists, campaigners and those who set up some of the first Centres of Independent Living (CILs).

The social model perspective has been used widely in the UK as answer to the sociological theories and common place mis-understandings on issues of disability being designated as entirely medical/individual attributes without reference to the environment, to the barriers that disabled people face, or the rights that they are being denied. Examples include: the American conservative sociologist Talcot Parsons who theorised the ‘Sick Role’ in the 1950s, and the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH).  Parsons suggested that ‘the sick role’ gave individuals the opportunity to ‘opt out ‘of society, and elicit sympathy from others which brought them certain social benefits. However, this was perceived as a deviant role-according to Parsons the individual was at fault, merely exercising a form of deviance for particular rewards-they could quite easily change their attitude and function within society adequately. In addition, the first classification from the World Health Organisation (WHO) produced The International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps (ICIDH). This concentrated purely on medical factors and ‘handicaps’. It was later remodelled to include supposed interaction with social factors and renamed International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Yet, it has never fully achieved the explanation of the interaction between impairment and disability.

In contrast, disability activists using the social model perspective argue it is how society treats disabled people that create the main problem. The experience of disability is not exclusively about the individual or the individual’s attitudes. The experience of disability is an interaction with actions of non disabled people, planners, governments, employers and others. People need educating on what it is really like to be disabled and the many barriers that disabled people face in their everyday lives. They need to understand those barriers which prevent disabled people having the same opportunities and life chances as their non disabled peers.

The social model does not focus on disabled people as victims of their physiology, whether physical, cognitive or otherwise, nor as vulnerable, helpless individuals but as people who are disabled by attitudes, the environment, design, working patterns and by those individuals who see disabled people as unworthy. The social model also offers a way to organise politically against the principles of social and economic exclusion, and oppression in a disabilist society.  It gives a critique of all that has gone before based on individualism and the market. It also argues that disabled people must be at the centre of voicing their own experiences. The social model was constructed by disabled people, not medical ‘experts’ , not policy makers, not social workers, not disability charities, not service providers, nor governments, nor private companies profiting from disability[6].

 

The Social Model: misunderstandings, misuse and other detractions

Disabled People against Cuts (DPAC) advocates the social model as do many others. Yet, DPAC has received criticism for insisting on working from the perspective of the social model. For example, the coalition governments’ use of the term social model in consultations regarding the proposed change from Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has caused some people to reject the social model: what’s the point of supporting something that is being used to limit our rights-but the coalition government don’t understand, care or really know what the social model is. This was evident to anyone that read through the questions in the first PIP consultation.

The social model has been rejected by some academics as being out dated or not quite fashionable enough: they claim it is better to write of discourse, and embrace the ‘subject’ (individual). From the ‘ivory towers’ it may be, but how can this version ever realistically contribute directly to social policy or to peoples’ lives? The social model is rejected because it is considered masculine, it talks about this thing called society, and it talks about ‘social oppression’-perceived as an outdated Marxist term. The social model is rejected because it talks about impairment, people don’t like to think of themselves as impaired, and anyway, some say: isn’t the social model all about physical impairments? What about mental health? What about learning difficulties? Disabled feminists also criticised the social model for what they suggested was the social model’s exclusion of the body, but it is in the body politic that this model has its greatest power. At times criticisms are academic (in both senses), overall it’s extremely damaging, as the criticisms are often based on misconceptions of the social model and miss what the perspective offers for changing disabled peoples’ lives (see Barnes[7]).

The Coalition and New Labour before them had some very fertile ground to make their attacks on a set of people who were divided on their own histories, who appeared to be against their own founding activists and their own collective political identity. At the same time, as noted, neither new Labour nor the Coalition understood, cared or really knew what the social model really meant. They did know that the social model was used as successful tool to establish rights for disabled people.

This is why recent governments and government departments have used the term without any notion of the motivation, history, or content nor any care for the outcomes. Governments claim they speak with some disabled peoples’ organisations, some disabled activists, but mainly governments’ speak with the multi million pound disability charities. The big disability charities also use the term social model to give the illusion that they understand disabled people and can speak on behalf of disabled people. They never could and they still can’t. It is for disabled people to speak for themselves individually, through their own user-led organisations and through their own grass root groups.

What the Social Model Perspective did for Disabled People

The social model perspective was used very successfully by campaigners, protesters, advocates, activists and Centres for Independent Living (CILs) to move disabled people in the UK to a position that was the envy of many European countries in terms of UK support for disabled people.

Was it this perspective and its promotion that brought us:

● The Independent Living Fund (ILF) –now closed to all new applicants since 2010 by the Coalition, while existing applicants are left wondering what will happen to their support

● Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to pay for the extra costs of being disabled -now being replaced by Personal Independence Payment and rounds of reassessment by the Coalition government

● Incapacity Benefit -now changed to Employment Support Allowance and rounds of reassessment by Atos put in place by New Labour and made more stringent by the Coalition government

● Access to Work to help with extra costs of working and to, in theory, provide extra support to those that needed it –recently we have seen cut-backs on Access to Work with the tightening of criteria and more costs transferred to the employer rather than the government under the Coalition.

● Direct Payments to pay for personal assistants to aid independent living through financial support from local authorities (L.A.s) -now cut back as L.A.s restrict access through more punitive eligibility criteria because of central government cuts of up to 40% to L.A. budgets

●The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) –now we have a diluted replacement including all discriminated groups called the Equality Act (2010) put in place by New Labour and further diluted by the Coalition government.

These things originally opened up independent living for disabled people; social model arguments affected social policy, housing, information, education, transport, design, peer support, advocacy and attitudes towards disabled people. Few would claim that the social model was a panacea for all the problems that disabled people faced, disabled people were still fighting for better rights, improvements on what we had, and better access before the current onslaught from the Coalition. However, to say that the social model and the social model perspective did nothing to change the lives of disabled people is an insult to the generations of disabled activists before us that fought for change. All those that pushed those extra rights forward were social model advocates who wanted more independence for themselves and for disabled people, they wanted to educate on a better understanding of the social and economic oppression that disabled people faced. Yet, New Labour, the Conservatives and a host of other actors were working on removing those gains and more from disabled people and disabled children from as early as 1992.

Those disabled people that now have a public platform and criticise or dismiss the social model are disparaging the very thing that gave them that platform in the first instance. We can identify a clear pattern for the advocates and history of the social model: disabled people, some of whom were institutionalised, disabled academics, disabled activists and disabled peoples’ organisations run and controlled by disabled people.  We can also identify a clear pattern for the bio-psychosocial model rhetoric and its advocates.

Part two

The Bio-psychosocial Model Basics: why it’s nothing to do with the social model

There are a few references explaining where the original version of the bio-psychosocial model came from. Some cite George Engel[8] others claim that it is an outcome of the International Classification of Functioning and Disability (ICF) [9] Gill Thorton[10] describes the model from a medical approach, while clearly identifying the vulgarisation of its later use as a tool in getting disabled people back to work

Briefly put, it is a theory that seeks to broaden the perspective on illness, by taking into account not only the biological, but also psychological and social factors which may have an influence on sickness, and consequently on the course that healing takes. The acknowledged value of this approach, when used for the benefit of the patient, is that it allows for the identification of non-biological influences which may interfere with an individual’s capacity to heal.

However, it seems that Parsons’ ‘sick role’ and of the disabled person as deviant comes closest to the rhetoric of the Coalition government. So rather than identify who or what the original source of the bio-psychosocial model might be, we need to look at its promotion and how it has been used to justify the rhetoric that ‘work makes you well’ and that ‘work is good for you’. A DWP Press release from October 2011[11] shows the ways in which Freud (Minister for welfare reform) justifies the new era of the bio-psychosocial. He is speaking from the perversely titled ‘Health and Well- Being’ conference.

Key speakers at the conference included Dr Catherine Hannaway trained in the U.S. in ‘improvement methodologies’ by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement whose former President and Chief Executive Officer was Donald M. Berwick administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services insurance. Dr Bill Gunnyeon CBE, Director for Health, Work and Wellbeing and Chief Medical Advisor DWP:a regular ‘expert’ in House of Commons groups, and like Freud an apologist for Atos testing and the change from DLA to PIP. Also Samantha Wortley, Health and Safety Advisor at the University of Derby: a university running accredited courses for Atos health practitioners, and Disability Charity RNIB’s Philip Connolly, Employment Campaigns Officer to name just a few.

Freud’s rendition was surely a case of ‘preaching to the converted’ as it was delivered to those connected to insurance, disability accreditation, disability charities (who are still using the language of rehabilitation) and various apologists for the current regime. He also uses academics Waddle and Burton who, like many others supporting this rhetorical model are connected with the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research directed by Mansel Aylward, (former Chief Medical Officer at the DWP) at the University of Cardiff: a department bankrolled by Unum. Freud happily declares:

Not so long ago employers were frightened of ill health. Good employers were concerned that being in work would cause some harm. Responsible employers acted to protect people, keeping them off work until they were fully recovered. But perversely they may have been doing more harm than good. We now understand that work is not necessarily bad for you.

People with physical or mental health conditions do not need to be protected from work and sometimes maintaining some form of working life can aid recovery. This understanding was first put forward by Aaron Antonovsky. It was expanded upon by Waddell and Burton. And helpfully formed an evidence base upon which I developed my welfare reform report.

Work provides more than just an income. Employment can also give people a sense of purpose, some structure to their lives. It can also be an important part of people’s social lives.

Quite simply good work is good for you.

Quite simply ‘good work’ is in short supply under the Coalition. Their promotion of the deeply unpopular workfair and the limited supply of temporary (including contract work), part-time, precarious jobs, and job insecurity for those in work have all been found to have adverse affects on mental and physical health. In addition, poor quality work can affect mental health in the same way as no work. The growing gap in inequality between the richest and the poorest affects the nation’s health and remains intergenerational.

The Construction and Deconstruction of a model for Private Profit

Aaron Antonovsky, one of the academics mentioned, put forward the idea of the concept of sense of coherence (SOC) in 1979[12]. It is not related to the bio-psychosocial model but ironically identifies one of the reasons why the current coalition regime imposed on disabled people will make them more susceptible to stress, anxiety and individual deterioration.

Collingwood claims[13]: The SOC is defined as: “The extent to which one has a pervasive enduring though a dynamic feeling of confidence that one’s environment is predictable and that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected.” It has three components – comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Comprehensibility is the extent to which events are perceived as making logical sense, that they are ordered, consistent, and structured. Manageability is the extent to which a person feels they can cope. Meaningfulness is how much one feels that life makes sense, and challenges are worthy of commitment. All these things are based on financial security, upbringing, social networks and natural ‘coping’ styles. Unremarkably, those in higher social classes who are more financially secure are deemed to have higher SOC levels, yet it also likely that they have better health outcomes too, as they are more likely to come from financially secure backgrounds.

As Antonovsky died in 1994 he will be unable to sue Freud for what seems to be a complete misinterpretation of SOC. Later we’ll compare the Antonovsky theory to the Waddell and Burton (Unum) scenario which exhibits a ‘blame the individual’ approach developing individualistic themes on illness and disability in which the social is completely erased.

Of course, the Health and Well- Being conference is just one in a long line of such conferences. In 2001 a conference with the charming title of ‘Malingering and Illness Deception’ was held at Woodstock near Oxford. It covered old ground for the insurance industries. Amongst the participants were Malcolm Wicks, then Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Work, and Mansel Aylward: Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and a number of academics like Waddell and Burton who would come to add academic credibility to Unum’s and government protestations on disability and illness.

What linked many of them together, including Aylward, was their association with the giant US insurance company UnumProvident (later Unum), represented at the conference by John Lo Cascio. The goal of the conference was the transformation of the welfare system[14] in particular the reduction of payments to disabled people which was perceived to be a key problem for successive governments. Unum were perfect for such a project as they had a very useful track record of reorganising exactly what health problems were in order to avoid insurance payouts. John Lo Casio was no stranger to such events or to working with Westminster governments. As second Vice chair of Unum he had been brought in by Conservative Peter Lilley (Secretary of State for Social Security 1992-1997) to ‘manage claims’ of incapacity benefit. Both Lo Casio and Alyward joined the government medical advisory group to devise the All Work Test, a forerunner of the Personal Capability Assessment (PCA) and a forerunner to the more recent Work Capability Assessment (WCA) used by Atos. The All Work Test awarded points for different descriptors and ignored GP evidence-Instead a set of adjudication officers who were trained in a theory set out by Mr Lo Cascio were employed to aid the management of claims – sounds familiar doesn’t it? Unum Provident was at the centre of UK welfare reform as early as 1992 under the Thatcher government, but they worked with New Labour too.

Unum Provident continued to build its sphere of power and influence, in 2001 launching: New Beginnings, a public private partnership between charities, including Disability Charities, NGO’s and government ministers with the express intention of furthering the company’s power in policy making. The New Beginnings advisory group included some of the academics from the Woodstock conference as well as major disability charities such as the Shaw Trust, Disability Alliance, and the Employers Forum for Disability[15] Unum went further stretching their tentacles into the university sector with the help of Mansel Alyward formally of the DWP.

Mansel Aylward, began directing the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University in 2004:a department that Unum Provident paid 1.6 million pounds for. A  department set up to provide an academic credibility and a new political slant to the bio-psychosocial model[16]  allowing Freud to claim that welfare reform for disability benefits was backed up by evidence that ‘work was good for you’. The department included Alyward, Professor Peter Halligan and Gordon Waddell. One year later Alyward and Waddell produced The Scientific & Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Benefits published by the DWP. As Rutherford[17] notes:

In their declarations of interest at the beginning of the text neither man cites their association with UnumProvident. This matters, because the monograph provides the unacknowledged intellectual framework for the 2006 Welfare Reform Bill [originally passed by New Labour]. And the methodology used by Waddell and Aylward is the same one that informs the work of UnumProvident. In a memorandum submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions, UnumProvident define their method of working: ‘Our extended experience … has shown us that the correct model to apply when helping people to return to work is a bio-psychosocial one’.

Peter Halligan, and Derek Wade of Oxford University (another Woodstock academic) explained the model in the British Medical Journal as something that needed to make a break from old understandings of the bio-psychosocial. ‘The old biomedical model of illness, which has dominated health care for the past century, cannot fully explain many forms of illness.’ What they really meant was that it was not helping reduce the number of applicants for incapacity benefit.

The old model ‘assumes a causal relation between disease and illness, (?) and fails to take into account how cultural attitudes and psychological and social factors shape illness behaviour. In other words it allows someone to report symptoms of illness, and for society to accept him or her as sick, without their having pathology’-a throwback to Parsons’ ‘sick role’ theory. They add that: ‘Personal choice plays an important part in the genesis or maintenance of illness’.

Alyward and Wadell moved this rhetoric up several gears: Arguing that adopting this new version of the model would lead to a ‘fundamental transformation in the way society deals with sickness and disabilities’ (p123). The goal and outcome of treatment is work: ‘work itself is therapeutic, aids recovery and is the best form of rehabilitation’. Work can set you free, in fact worklessness now transforms into a bizarre serious risk to life. It is announced as:

one of the greatest known risks to public health: the risk is equivalent to smoking 10 packets of cigarettes per day’ (p17).

Halligan and Wade also tap into theories of Talcot Parsons to argue: ‘Our model suggests that illness is a dysfunction of the person in his (or her) physical and social environment’. Like Parsons, they suggest that the ‘sick role’ is no more than an individual deviance: a choice. The solution is to change people’s behaviour by transforming the language and culture of welfare, and by using incentives as a ‘motivational tool’ to prise people out of their sick role (p166). The motivation tools were later renamed sanctions. That is sanctions to those people refusing to work for their benefits on programs such as ‘workfare[18]’, sanctions through which their benefits can be removed from weeks up to three years leaving them without income if they dare indulge in any ‘wrong thinking’.

 Influence and Profit: Unum, ATOS and complicit Disability CharitiesIn July 2007 The Personal Capability Assessment (PCA) was redesigned by two technical working groups, one for ‘physical impairment and another for mental health issues. Representatives from Unum and Atos were present in both groups[19]. The redesign would be one step closer to the hated and much maligned Work Capability Assessment to be delivered by AtosTechnical working groups on the WCA also hosted the views and input of some of the big Disability Charities including: MENCAP, MIND, the National Autistic Society, Parkinson ’s Disease Society, RNIB, RNID and the Disability Benefits Consortium including some of those already mentioned, as well as Leonard Cheshire Disability, Sense, RADAR, SCOPE, Sue Rider and the Papworth Trust[20].No doubt this was good preparation for the Disability Works UK launch in 2011 another charity consortium exercising their muscle as ‘experts in disability employment’ involving SCOPE, MENCAP, MIND, Leonard Cheshire, and Action for Blind People (a part of RNIB) with a healthy turnover value of 654.4 million and a cumulative surplus of 15.6 million[21] All corporate disability charities were more than prepared to take maximum advantage of workfare type schemes recently announced as having unlimited time scales for disabled people[22].We should note that so far we do not see any user-led disabled peoples groups involved in any positions of power or profit in this wholesale transformation of welfare or in partnership with the government. The charities were speaking for us because there were profits to be made from lucrative government contracts designed to get disabled people back to work- they are in the disability business too after all. They continue to ‘help’ by advising on mental health issues and producing publicity against the WCA that they were involved in and publicity against Atos, who they sat at the table with-I guess that’s part of the social model bit they adopted, plus of course their partnership with user-led groups in the Hardest Hit protests which protested against the WCA and welfare reform-oh the irony or is it duplicity?Atos were also on board the welfare transformation gravy train before the WCA.  Atos bought out SchlumbergerSema in 2003 for 1.3 billion Euros. Through this, they gained access to key SchlumbergerSema public sector contracts in the UK, including one with the Metropolitan Police, a deal with the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Government Gateway project[23]. This was a significant move as DWP contracts included the Personal Capability Assessment and the buyout gave Atos (renamed as Atos Origin in 2004) access to the Logical Integrated Medical Assessment (LIMA) and 100 million per year from the DWP for delivering it with the proviso that they speed up claim and processing times. Another Disability Charity: Shaw Trust announced their pleasure at future work in partnership with Atos in 2010. Shaw Trust would also profit through the misery of disabled people by delivering the euphemistically titled ‘work programs’ for disabled people. Sally Burton, CEO[24] at Shaw Trust gushed:

“Shaw Trust is delighted the consortium has qualified to bid for the opportunity to supply seven Lots of the Government’s Work Programme. As the UK’s largest   third sector provider of employment services, our partnership with Atos Origin and Pinnacle People can ensure the charity sector remains at the heart of welfare-to-work.” [My emphasis]

But lets move from income driven Disability Charities to failed bankers (apparently they do exist). In 2006 New Labour chose David Freud, a senior banker at UBS AG to conduct a review of New Labour’s welfare to work policies. Freud later defected to the Conservatives on a promise of a peerage. Invest in ME[25] expose Freud’s mistakes in banking and other areas explaining his own incapacities in some detail:

The “To Banker from Bankies” 2009 report (which was supported and funded by Oxfam) states, in 2007 Freud was appointed as the key Government advisor on welfare reform by Labour’s John Hutton and was commissioned to produce a report “Reducing Dependency, Increasing Opportunity” on the “Welfare to Work” programme.  This was despite the fact that, in his own words, Freud “didn’t know anything about welfare at all” (Daily Telegraph, 4th February 2008). Despite the great complexity of the welfare system, Freud researched and wrote his welfare “shake-up” plan in just three weeks (Daily Telegraph, 1st May 2006). It recommended that the existing role of private firms (such as UNUM and Atos) in the Government’s “Welfare to Work” programme be dramatically increased; he acknowledged that there was no evidence to suggest that private contractors were any better than the Department for Work and Pensions, but he still concluded that it would be “economically rational” to pay them tens of thousands of pounds for every person they removed from benefits.

In his report Freud constantly misquotes studies and uses over 170 references to ‘models’ citing the zsars of the Unum financed Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University consistently. While Freud openly acknowledges a useful partnership between of two of the most hated private companies and their involvement in welfare to work issues, the company’s themselves have been much more unwilling to acknowledge any links between them.

Links between Unum and Atos

In the 2004 Atos report, Atos appears to use the language of Unum and the academics of Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research unreservedly, with sex thrown in for good measure:

Psychosocial factors…are at least as important as physical factors in the onset and maintenance of these conditions.  Patients can make a number of ‘secondary gains’ with these unexplained illnesses, such as…turning a socially unacceptable disability into a more acceptable ‘organic’ disability caused by injury or disease beyond their control. They can blame their failures on the illness; elicit care, sympathy and concern from family and friends; avoid work or even sex; and there are financial rewards associated with disability.

 …if a patient believes their illness was caused by a virus and there’s nothing they can do about it, their prognosis is not likely to be positive.  But if the patient believes…that the symptoms won’t last long and they have control over them, then the prognosis will be better….We need patients to understand their situation, so they are more likely to go back to work

(Except from the powerful letter from Douglas Frazer to the House of Lords reproduced on the Invest in ME web site)

Despite being linked in the chain of the key players at the DWP, successive government ministers, a string of conferences, the Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research and involved together in the PCA and WCA. Atos and Unum continue to deny that they have any links with each other. However, they appear to swop CEOs and often share the same platforms at conferences and on government groups as noted. As DPAC’s sister campaign group Black Triangle posts show: MP Norman Lamb, (special political advisor to Nick Clegg) also seems to have trouble recollecting links with Unum. He denied any knowledge of a company named Unum going as far as to write to our very own minister Maria Miller. Lamb wrote:

xxxx xxxxxxxx informs me that a company called Unum Provident “has been convicted of major fraud and banned from trading in many States in the US” up until 2008. He states that this company has been advising the DWP on welfare reform since the early 1990s. He also states that the current Atos Chief Medical Officer, Mike O’Donnell, had been Chief Medical Officer of Unum from March 2000 to September 2010.  Is all this true?  Can you let me know exactly what the Government knows about the position relating to Unum Provident and its relationship with Atos healthcare?

The post on the Black triangle site continues:

Imagine my surprise and shock then considering the above to discover this morning while doing some research online about connections between Atos & Unum, particularly the relationship between Mike O’Donnell – Chief Medical Officer – Atos Healthcare and Peter O’Donnell – Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer – Unum Insurance, (brothers perhaps? Anybody know?), to find out that good old Norman last Tuesday was a guest speaker at a Unum hosted fringe meeting at the LibDem Conference speaking alongside Peter O’Donnell, the Chief Financial Officer of Unum Insurance –

Speaker/Artist(s) Info: Norman Lamb MP; Teresa Perchard, Director of Public Policy, Citizens Advice; Nick Pearce, Director, IPPR; Peter O’Donnell, Chief Financial Officer, Unum. Chair: Patrick Hennessy, Sunday Telegraph.

Time: Tuesday September 20, 2011 6:15pm – 7:30pm

Venue: Hyatt Regency: Fortissimo2 Bridge Street, BirminghamB1 2JZ

Type: LibDem → Panel

Host Organization(s): IPPR, Unum

It’s also worth recognising the media representation at this too. As noted Unum continue to deny any involvement with Atos and vice versa, yet Unum was providing insurance for Atos workers up until 2009. On Unum’s rather amusing ‘Ask Unum’ site, clearly set up so that they can continue denying what is a matter of record in many instances, they state: “Unum UK currently has no relationship with ATOS Ltd. Until September 2009, it provided Income Protection to ATOS Ltd for ATOS’s staff” .Should they also add that the previous chief medical officer of Unum installed at Atos in 2011 had nothing to do with Unum before that time too?

Additional information on Atos partners has been requested through a Freedom of Information request to the DWP by P. Wilkinson (2011)[26] this asks which third parties Atos works with. The response states:

Atos Healthcare have advised that to release the name of the private company they have appointed to investigate the handling of complaints would affect the basis of the contract between Atos Healthcare and that company and would have contractual and commercial implications for Atos Healthcare.

As part of their preparation for Independent Tier (IT) arrangements under the new Contract, Atos Healthcare proposed and DWP agreed that details of the private company they have appointed to investigate the handling of complaints be withheld to ensure independence. This proposal and agreement took the form of an entry in the contract as follows: “The name of this firm will not be divulged to any third party to ensure continued
independence”.  

Can we guess who it is yet? The phrase ‘all in it together’ comes to mind –maybe this is what Cameron was actually talking about. But, what of Unum’s own useful criminal record to the Coalition?

Disability Denial: an alliance between Unum and the State

When the links between the profiteers in the misery of disabled people and the ideologies of denial are exposed what we are left with? First this is not about getting people into work, whatever the Tories and previous governments claim  they don’t care if you work or not. Media rhetoric[27] on scroungers, workshy and other protestations of undeserving poor were part of the strategy to change public opinion helped along by misleading DWP press releases. This is about denying benefits, denying illness and denying incapacity. It is not about even about ‘thinking yourself well’ or tortured nonsensical models shored up by dubious academics: It’s about something Unum have a successful history of: it’s about denying pay outs and capitalising on fear and risk.

The denial of pay outs may be through Unum’s insurance policies or it may be through denying pay outs after an individual has paid a life-time of national insurance contributions to the state-but is put on time limited Employment and Support Allowance- the outcome will be same. Who better to work with ex-banker Freud and MP’s in denying people their rightful entitlements than a company which has been publically named as: “an outlaw company- It is a company that for years has operated in an illegal fashion[28]” by California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in 2005, where Unum were charged with more than 25 violations of state law and fined $8 million. Among the charges were:

 ….that the company knowingly applied the wrong legal definition of disability in denying claims or ruling claimants were able to go back to work, targeted high-cost claims for denials to save the firm money, misused claimants’ medical records and even the opinions of in-house medical personnel to deny benefits and wrongly sought to file cases under a federal benefits law that severely limits claimants’ ability to successfully sue their insurers.

Reads like the work theory of Atos doesn’t it? These charges followed a financial settlement in the previous year in which 48 other U.S states raised critical issues on Unum’s working methods.

Rutherford argues:

in the 1980s Unum, and insurance companies Provident and Paul Revere were in trouble in the U. S. They had increased profits by sharing similar policies on disability and sickness insurance and selling to professionals. A combination of falling interest rates and the growth of diagnosed illnesses which were not subject to the insurance sector’s tests appeared to be increasing, affecting the professionals who had taken out policies with the companies, and in turn affecting company profits. These illnesses included: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Multiple Sclerosis, Lyme disease.

An aggressive ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome plan followed, with claims being managed in a way that continued to maximise profits. The insurance industry called on the academics, Professor Simon Wessely of King’s College and Professor Michael Sharpe of Edinburgh University (both participants in the Woodstock conference) in an attempt to reclassify those conditions that were costing money, and lobby the medical profession on such conditions so they fell outside the remit of ‘pay outs’. It meant that specific illnesses were targeted in order to discredit the legitimacy of claims.

This ‘strategy’ was to prove useful in dealing with the UK’s welfare reform and in overriding the basis of medical opinion on a whole set of conditions. As the state joined in the denial with its set of private companies and supporting academics Unum achieved more market returns while disabled people began to see their own welfare support rapidly diminishing.

Capitalising on Fear: how the denial of state support improves Unum’s profit margin

Unum couldn’t lose, as early as 1997 with the roll out of the All work Test, in which Lo Casio had had played a major part, Unum launched an expensive advertising campaign. One ad ran:

April 13, unlucky for some. Because tomorrow the new rules on state incapacity benefit announced in the 1993 autumn budget come into effect. Which means that if you fall ill and have to rely on state incapacity benefit, you could be in serious trouble[29].

Lo Cascio replied in the negative when Private Eye asked if he was concerned about the conflict of interest involved in his company’s advertising campaign, which sought to gain from benefit cuts that he had helped to initiate. However Unum Chairman Ward E. Graffam did acknowledge the ‘exciting developments’ in Britain. Unum’s influence in government was helping to boost the private insurance market:

The impending changes to the State ill-health benefits system will create unique sales opportunities across the entire disability market and we will be launching a concerted effort to harness the potential in these.’[30]

In 2012 the worst aspects of welfare reform were pushed through by multi-millionaire ex-banker Freud: including over a million disabled people expected to be completely removed from Incapacity benefits and unable to qualify for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) through more stringent testing by Atos, 12 month time limits on ESA to include those with terminal illness, and an additional half a million set to lose Disability Living Allowance and be ineligible for Personal Independence Payments amongst the regime. The fraud of the government rhetoric claiming to be supporting ‘those in most need’ was almost complete with the closure to new applicants for the Independent Living Fund (ILF) in 2010 and ILF’s expected closure in 2015. To celebrate Unum happily launched another set of advertising campaigns in 2012 advising people that the state wouldn’t support them and that they should take out insurance against sickness and disability.

A Tale of two Models: Disabled People vs Unum, Atos, Governments and Disability Charities

The social model and the bio-psychosocial model have each had powerful affects on disabled peoples’ lives. However they are two completely different animals and we must never succumb to the government’s attempts to conflate them. It’s quite clear which model gives most to disabled people and which is being used to take away disabled peoples’ rights and their right to dignity . It is quite clear why we should continue to rage against the current imposition of the market regime of misery. It is quite clear why we should continue to support and use the social model of disability: a model with its rooted in the experiences of those incarcerated in a Leonard Cheshire Disability Charity institution: One of the disability charities that continue to profit from disabled peoples’ misery by sitting at the table with governments, Atos and Unum ‘helping’ the progress of the WCA and gaining from lucrative government contracts for work programs- with their and other charity support disabled people don’t need enemies.

The increases in the recorded suicides of disabled people brought about by the fear and misery imposed on disabled people through the current neo-liberal regime is likely to grow. Yet, the worsening situation of the many being denied support to which they are entitled to through national insurance contributions, through the most basic notion of human rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons, and the European Convention on Human Rights will not affect the income or profits of the private companies or the disability charities involved .

This is not about getting people into work- there are no jobs, much less jobs for disabled people. It is not about even about ‘thinking yourself well’ or tortured nonsensical models shored up by dubious academics in the pay of Unum. This is about denying benefits, denying illness and denying disability: It’s about something Unum have a successful history of:  denying pay outs for disabled people while capitalising on fear and risk. It’s about an ideological regime of misery and austerity in the twelfth richest country in the world.

It amounts to the biggest government benefit fraud in social welfare and human rights in contemporary history.

twitter: @redjolly1

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Ann Whitehurst for sending me Jonathan Rutherford’s excellent piece in Soundings (on which some of this is based) and other pieces explaining how poverty and disability were being remade as an individual attributes rather than a societal failings by the right wing. Thanks to Bob Williams Findlay for his helpful comments. Thanks also to Julia Cameron for her comments, sending numerous links and information and urging that this (or something like this) should be written, and to all those activists past and present who will continue to fight for the rights of disabled people using the social model and who usually also say Rights not Charity! You know who you are…..

For online texts on the social model and disability issues see: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/



[3] Oliver, Mike The Politics of Disablement

 

https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/archframe.htm

[4] DISABLED PEOPLE IN BRITAIN AND DISCRIMINATION A

Case for Anti-Discrimination Legislation https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/archframe.htm

 

[5] https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Abberley/chapter10.pdf

[6] https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Oliver/in%20soc%20dis.pdf

[7] The Social Model of Disability: Myths and Misconceptions https://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/archframe.htm

 

Apr 082012
 

Speakers

John McDonnell MP
Les Woodward GMB
National Convenor of Remploy
Gail Cartmail Unite Assistant General Secretary
Rob Murthwaite Disabled People Against Cuts

Meeting
Thursday 19 April 7.30pm

University of London Union
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HY
Disabled access via Malet street entrance. Adapted toilet on second floor. Disabled accessible lift.

The announcement by Maria Miller, Tory Secretary for Work and Pensions, that she would close 54 Remploy factories in a two phase attack on disabled people must be fought and challenged by the whole of the Trade Union, Labour and Disability movement.

This attack is a despicable act of barbarism and nasty vindictiveness against the company and its employees. What this act of barbarism will achieve, however, will be misery, poverty and a very early grave for the vast majority of Remploy
workers. Workers who will be paying the ultimate price with their jobs for the economic crisis that they had no part in causing nor benefited from, unlike the multi millionaire bankers and the very good multi millionaire friends in the Cabinet who are doing very nicely, thank you very much out of this crisis.
Tory ministers claim Remploy factories are ineffi cient but fail to mention they handed out £1.8 million in bonuses to Remploy bosses who have deliberately run
down the company in order to ease the way for closure of the factories.

With 6 people chasing every job vacancy in Britain, it is transparently dishonest of the Tories to say the closures are part of a plan to get disabled people into other workplaces. Of the workers made redundant in the round of closures
in 2007 only 6% have found alternative employment.

Instead of slashing jobs and wrecking lives the government should invest and give disabled workers the power to make Remploy the workplace they want.
This is an attack that can be stopped. When construction bosses tried to cut pay for electricians by 35% they fought back and won against huge fi rms like Balfour Beatty. Remploy workers can win too, but like the ‘sparks’ they will need solidarity from the movement to support their struggle. Please come to this
meeting and show your support.

Remploy Workers will not go quietly into the night, we will not go
quietly anywhere!
Remploy factories are not for closure and not for sale at any price!

    DPAC logo

Apr 042012
 

Date: Friday, 20th April 2012
Time: Assembly Midday
Place: Outside the Department of Work and Pensions, Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA
Rally: March to Old Palace Yard, Westminster (opposite Parliament) for Rally with Speakers

We must show the strength of feeling that taking jobs from disabled people should not be tolerated in a civilised society.

Transport is being arranged from all Remploy London sites.  For information contact: julie.haynes@remploy.co.uk

It would be helpful if you can register to attend by clicking https://fight4remploy.eventbrite.co.uk/

Please come – and bring your friends – and bring your families too!!

 

On 7th March Remploy announced its intention to close all of its factories with the

 

potential compulsory redundancy of 1,752 mostly disabled workers. The joint Unions are

 

committed to fighting to save the Remploy factories and our members’ jobs.

 

We must show the strength of feeling that taking jobs from disabled people should not

 

be tolerated in a civilised society. It will not improve the country’s financial situation – it

 

may well make it worse.

 

Join us in the fight to save Remploy


www.uniteforoursociety.org

Apr 022012
 

Boris claimed he was too busy to turn up at a London mayoral ‘hustlings’ organised by user-led organisations Inclusion London and Transport for all (TfA) to listen to disabled people.

However, Boris can find the time to go to another ‘hustlings’ event organised by the big disability charities including RNIB, Leonard Cheshire Disability and MENCAP. The charities have not invited user-led disabled peoples’ organisations to attend. The big charities continue to speak FOR disabled people with no mandate to do so and continue to exclude disabled people from talks with local and national governments as always.

DPAC asks: How much longer will user-led organisations and disabled people continue to be silenced by the multi-million pound charities?  How much longer will people support the big disability charities without realising that they are acting in their own interests? Already Disability Works UK (a consortium of charities  claiming a turn over value of £654.4 million) run workfare for disabled people, risking sanctions and loss of benefit for the very people the charities claim to ‘help’.  They claim they dont do sanctions but this is because they pass on the names of people to DWP so that they can do them.

Boris may be too busy to notice or simply not care- disabled people of London should care and make sure that his arrogance towards disabled peoples’ issues and the real problems we face translates into a ‘no vote’ for Boris in May.

Click on link to read the story of the snub by John Pring:

https://www.disabledgo.com/blog/2012/03/anger-over-boris-snub-for-user-led-question-time/

 

Apr 022012
 

In Geneva today (2nd April), Dr Pauline Nolan, Policy Officer for Inclusion Scotland, will submit evidence to a preliminary hearing ahead of a planned review of the human rights record of 14 states, including the UK.

On behalf of the Campaign for A Fair Society – a coalition of more than 70 Scottish charities – Dr Nolan will warn the cumulative impact of welfare reform and cuts to benefits affecting disabled people will mean their ability to live a full life is impaired. In particular, she will argue that welfare changes undermine their right to be included in the community.

The campaign also claims disabled people are being denied access to justice when they try to appeal against these cuts to their benefits.

Dr Nolan said she aimed to equip the UN with a series of recommendations and questions to put to the UK Government when its representatives appear in front of the Human Rights Council in May.

She added: “Disability organisations, disabled people and the Parliament’s own Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that these cuts will have a devastating cumulative impact on the livelihoods of disabled people.

“Further cuts are taking place to local authority services they receive. Taken together, all these cuts are severely undermining the human rights of disabled people.”

She claims half of the £18 billion of cuts to be made under welfare reform will fall on households containing disabled people, adding: “These cuts will push hundreds of thousands of disabled people and their families into poverty and thousands will be made homeless.”

Jim Elder-Woodward, of the Independent Living in Scotland project, said: “I am really pleased that Dr Nolan is going to Geneva to tell the UN just how this Coalition Government is systematically undermining the rights of disabled people by cutting their benefits and services.

“The combined voices of disabled people have either been silenced or misrepresented by the UK Government in their resolution to make disabled people suffer over 50% of the total £18bn in benefit cuts.”

Norma Curran, of Values Into Action Scotland, added: “These welfare reforms are devastating people’s lives. It’s not acceptable to challenge the human rights of people on the grounds of race, sex, language, or religion, so why does the UK Government think that it is acceptable to breach the human rights of disabled people?”


Stephen Naysmith – Herald Scotland