We are disappointed with the TUC statement on PIP today calling for reform on PIP by linking PIP with work.
General secretary Paul Nowak says: “The Government has a vital opportunity to support more disabled people into work through the Timms Review…. Only a genuine reform of Pip will ensure that disabled people who can work receive the support they need to move into and stay in work.”
But PIP is paid to people who work and who don’t work. It is not paid on the basis of work – it is paid on the basis of daily living and mobility/getting around. Work does not come into the assessment, nor should it. It may help people to access work, but that is not the primary purpose of it.
The TUC statement suggests that PIP reform and the Timms review is justified and should involve consideration of work. It is now being reported in the media as ‘PIP rules should be changed to get disabled people into work.’
DPAC member Bill Scott says: ‘I’m a lifelong trade union member and long time activist but I feel utterly betrayed by what Paul Nowak has said and so will hundreds of thousands of other disabled people. Honestly I’ve spent over 20 years trying to build bridges between the trade union movement and disabled people and I feel as though I’ve totally wasted my time as all the suspicions that disabled people had about them are borne out.’
DPAC member Lee Starr Elliot moved a motion at the CWU conference calling on the TUC to do better when it comes to the gov attack on social security for deaf and disabled people: Recommitting to Action Against Disability Cuts. It was passed unanimously. Video and text below.
I stand before you today because we are witnessing a coordinated, systemic attack on disabled workers – an attack that is being dressed up as “reform” but feels like a declaration of war on our class. Last year, at the TUC Congress, we stood together. Motions 38 and 39 were passed unanimously. The entire trade union movement pledged coordinated and sustained action against disability cuts. The CWU was at the heart of that fight.
But today, there is a dangerous silence coming from Congress House.
The TUC leadership has suggested that because of minor concessions on PIP, the “emergency” has passed. They claim they no longer need to implement the actions we voted for.
Conference, they are wrong.
These concessions are a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. They are temporary, lasting only until the conclusion of the Timms Review. And let’s be clear: the promised “co-production” with disabled people is a sham. We aren’t being consulted; we are being managed.
While the TUC waits, our members are suffering. Cuts to Motability, the gutting of Access to Work, and the squeezing of the Universal Credit Health Element are not “policy adjustments” – they are life-altering emergencies.And it’s not just the Department for Work and Pensions. Decades of austerity and the systematic underfunding of local councils have decimated social services, transport, and education. When a council can’t provide a bus or a carer, it is the disabled worker who is imprisoned in their own home.
Perhaps most sickening is the targeting of the next generation. Through the Milburn and Streeting reviews, we see a government obsessed with “over-diagnosis” and “work-readiness.” They are threatening to abolish Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and forcing 55,000 young disabled people into compulsory placements under the shadow of sanctions.
This is not “support.” This is state-sponsored bullying.
That is why this motion is vital. We are instructing our NEC to stop the TUC from dragging its feet. We are calling for:
1. *A coordinated movement-wide campaign* that exposes the cumulative impact of these cuts.
2. *An accessible, static demonstration* and a mass lobby of Parliament. We need to show them our faces and our strength.
3. *A weekend demonstration against Labour’s austerity plans.* We must send a message to this government: You cannot balance the books on the backs of disabled workers.
4. And finally, we demand an *independent disability review* – one led democratically by disabled people and trade unions, not by Whitehall bureaucrats working for the benefit of their mates and their pockets.
Conference, we don’t just want a seat at the table; we want to change the menu.
The TUC must recommit and be led by the disability community not the politicians. We must support the movement to move united and We must stand with our disabled members, not just in words, but in struggle. I move. Solidarity