Discrimination in the workplace…..
November 30, 2008Well, I hope James Purnell is reading this report.
In the first comprehensive survey of discrimination in the workplace, the commission found 11.6% of employees with a disability or long-term illness experienced physical violence at work, compared with 5.5% of other employees. It said 8.8% of disabled people sustained an injury as a result of violence or aggression at work, compared with 4.7% of able-bodied people.
And with the ongoing attacks on welfare through sanctions and penalties forcing people to get any old job this report is not surprising in the least. Employers aren’t exactly encouraging disabled people into the workplace and the statistics speak for themselves (from Labour Market Outlook).
1. 18% of employers say would exclude job applications from people claiming Incapacity benefit due to mental distress.
2. 10% would exclude people claiming IB because of physical health difficulties.
3. 90% of employers’ say it would be impossible or difficult to employ a visually impaired person.
4. 60% of employers’ discriminate against dependency issues such as people with a criminal record, mental health issues and incapacity.
So will NL put any penalties on employers? Sharpen anti-discrimation laws? Improve working environments? Encourage training and education? Somehow I doubt it… Because it is all about supply-side economics, productivity and people being mere drones, cogs in the wheel. Having a different set of ideas about work would help.Yes if work is the alienated and alienating waste of time that it often is at present would not a different view of how humans can make a productive contribution make a difference? What about democratic participation in deciding what needs to be done and by whom actually involve people on their own terms?
This may be utopian but we have got to start being able to think differently about these things. Otherwise being fit for work will always be about making yourself into an automation for corporate capitalism: a system at the end of the day that is built on bullying both subtle and not so subtle.
Well it goes to their mantra of work being the new welfare, the holy *Workfare* (cue choir of angels as neoliberals writhe in paroxysms of capitalist ecstasy) if though work remains closed to many groups their already dubious ideas are demonstrably… unworkable.
All this talk of getting disabled people into work is bunk. It’s about cutting benefits.
Just look at the Remploy closures – supported by the big charities, note, under the guise of getting people into mainstream employment. Whatever happened to joined-up government?
The latest plans by “Progress” are to force women with children to find employment when their child is two years old. This is tempered by advocacy of longer maternal leave and universal childcare – but whatever happened to choice?
Two Remploy factories closed in my area, not one single disabled person has found work, a TV program a few months ago took a look to see how many people had been placed into employment after Mr Hain shot his mouth off, none not one.
I’ve been looking for work for five years solid in July this year mind you July I was told by my DEA at the job center plus not to come back until they sent for me, I had nothing not a phone call, when I went down a few months ago asking for an interview i was told my DEA is off work with depression. talk about laugh.