Disabled minimum wage

kingfisherblue

I've just seen a headline on the BBC news channel stating that employers are often reluctant to employ disabled people, but that if the minimum wage for disabled people was lower than that of the rest of the population, more disabled people might be taken on by employers :mad:. I'll try to find a link in a minute.

But..... wouldn't this be discrimination against people with disabilities? Why should their work be rewarded with a lower monetary value than non-disabled people? I am assuming that the disabled person is just as capable of a job as a non- disabled person.

I'm not disabled, but my son is. Disabled people are often undervalued by society as it is - doesn't this project the impression that disabled people are not as valued as their non-disabled peers?

Link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13809620

Having read the story, as opposed to just heariung the headline, it is only one MP who has suggested this. He specifically refers to people with learning difficulties and mental health problems - I wonder if he knows the difference? It was o tory MP who made the comments, but another tory MP disagreed with him and later a spokesman said that it did not reflect tory party views or government policy.

Brassedoff

Sorry, as a former owner of a large business proving that they are discriminated against is very hard. In 2008 for every vacancy advertised, I was getting hundreds of applications. For a factory labourer (floor sweeper, keep the place tidy etc) I had an application from someone with a masters in car design!

From my perspective, I never cared about sex, colour, race, ablement/disability when giving jobs. It was about whether they could do the job. People stuck with me because that was my attitude. There was no one rate for men and one for women (yes I know its illegal, but easy to get around). I actually preferred to employ people 40+. They had a better attitude.

I can see where employers would NOT employ disabled. No beating about the bush on it. Disabled people cost employers money, whether in adaptations, time off, extra allowances or time and that is a shame. So it is easier for the employer to bury the application in the pile of able bodied.

You only have to look at the ratio of disabled in the public sector compared to private. I know it is wrong, I would no longer employ me. I would have too much time off and I am ill every day.

As for reduced money. Again a quid or two here or there in a company of 20+ makes to real difference to the bottom line.

Having seen the MP's speech I was aghast! I knew exactly where he was pigeon holing the disabled. He was looking at cheap labour, menial jobs. I do not believe he was on about any other type of work! Corner shops. Take-away deliveries, the sort of job they would have normally given the 16 year old who had just started.

It was shocking and it showed the old attitude of the Tory party. "specifically refers to people with learning difficulties and mental health problems" can do sweeping of floors, cleaning of offices, factories and on and on. He should be hung drawn and quartered over those comments. I thought employment and employing people had moved on. Perhaps I am naïve? But his comments and any other proposals akin to this need resisting. It is the thin edge of the wedge and will only encourage the unscrupulous employer!!!

Limana68

Yes I read about it and I was shocked and disgusted.:mad:

kurgon

Storm in a tea-cup. One person's views that are not shaqred by anyone else, including his own party. I wonder if he's related to Gelnn Hoddle?

dori2o

kurgon wrote: »

Storm in a tea-cup. One person's views that are not shaqred by anyone else, including his own party. I wonder if he's related to Gelnn Hoddle?

I wouldn't be so sure.

The Tory's may have come out and said that the comments don't meet the same values the Tory's have, but it is common knowledge that ther Tory's have always been against the NMW and the rights afforded to employees.

I can understand that employing a disabled person may cost more, but they have a right to a job just as everyone else does.

Personally I believe it's time to bring the quota's back in and prevent employers 'burying the application in the pile of able bodied.'

Brassedoff

dori2o wrote: »

I wouldn't be so sure.

The Tory's may have come out and said that the comments don't meet the same values the Tory's have, but it is common knowledge that ther Tory's have always been against the NMW and the rights afforded to employees.

I can understand that employing a disabled person may cost more, but they have a right to a job just as everyone else does.

Personally I believe it's time to bring the quota's back in and prevent employers 'burying the application in the pile of able bodied.'

Firstly, just as the last government and now this, it is all the same. Fly a flag and see who salutes it. If it causes enough of a storm, it will be buried for a few years. If the Tory’s get an all out election win the next time around, scrapping the NMW, will I can almost guarantee be deep inside some sort of employment legislation.

As for quota’s don’t be daft. So there’s a quota for disabled, their would be one for all of society. Asian, black, eastern European, women, age groups. Will not work, cannot work! You’d get around it in a flash!

How about this little bit of commonsense? Employ the best for the job!!! End of.

As for employing disabled instead of burying the application in a pile. It happens. You will not stop it. Legislate, interfere, be a busy-body. There’s nothing you can do.

Employers will be able to roll out the specific skill criteria, I would. You would not get around it then. Something simple like. Must be able to attend sites that have high working areas, uneven surfaces and on. Employers have to make reasonable adjustments. That’s it. T

Hastobe_Katt

Brassedoff wrote: »

I knew exactly where he was pigeon holing the disabled. He was looking at cheap labour, menial jobs. I do not believe he was on about any other type of work! Corner shops. Take-away deliveries, the sort of job they would have normally given the 16 year old who had just started.

It was shocking and it showed the old attitude of the Tory party. "specifically refers to people with learning difficulties and mental health problems" can do sweeping of floors, cleaning of offices, factories and on and on. He should be hung drawn and quartered over those comments. I thought employment and employing people had moved on. Perhaps I am naïve? But his comments and any other proposals akin to this need resisting. It is the thin edge of the wedge and will only encourage the unscrupulous employer!!!

Of course, everyone knows that being disabled means having no brain. There couldn't possibly be educated, talented and smart disabled people could there??? How preposterous!!

GlasweJen

I'm a disabled worker and my time is worth just as much as my colleagues. I have studied for years to get qualifications and I am perfectly able at doing my job. I know many disabled workers and we are just as entitled to a living wage to be able to pay rent/mortage, council tax, transport costs, clothes and the costs of being disabled that don't get covered by our disablility benefit/tax credits.

If the tory minister was so caring about disabled people needing a boost in the job then why not make an agreement that an employer who takes on a disabled worker only needs to pay say £3 an hour and the government would top it up to NMW for a period of 6 months after which the company has had time to train the person and can then start to pay the going rate on their own, condition being that short of massive misconduct the person must be employed for at least 12 months so that they have rights under employment laws to not be terminated without notice for no good reason.

The idea of paying someone less just because they are disabled is apalling, what is disability? Do we start paying people with hearing aids less, maybe the guy with the mild dyslexia, the lady in the wheelchair who works in a fully accessible office?

Richie-from-the-Boro

GlasweJen wrote: »

I'm a disabled worker and my time is worth just as much as my colleagues. I have studied for years to get qualifications and I am perfectly able at doing my job. I know many disabled workers and we are just as entitled to a living wage to be able to pay rent/mortage, council tax, transport costs, clothes and the costs of being disabled that don't get covered by our disablility benefit/tax credits.

If the tory minister was so caring about disabled people needing a boost in the job then why not make an agreement that an employer who takes on a disabled worker only needs to pay say £3 an hour and the government would top it up to NMW for a period of 6 months after which the company has had time to train the person and can then start to pay the going rate on their own, condition being that short of massive misconduct the person must be employed for at least 12 months so that they have rights under employment laws to not be terminated without notice for no good reason.

The idea of paying someone less just because they are disabled is apalling, what is disability? Do we start paying people with hearing aids less, maybe the guy with the mild dyslexia, the lady in the wheelchair who works in a fully accessible office?

In all previous recessions, all sections of society lost jobs, most people eventually managed to get back into paid employment, the disabled section of society however people having lost their job and never got back in.

The government spend 20 times as much on keeping disabled people idle [ £7b ] as it does on disability employment support [ £330m ] every £1 spent on Access to Work netts £1.48 back to the exchequer, the real benefit of course is the social inclusion and ' felt self worth ' benefit disabled people gain from being an integrated part of society in general and the workforce in particular. However you can't have Welfare to Work without work, and the assumption that there are thousands of employers waiting to give sustinence to the disabled by way of a supported let alone a self supporting job while supporting physical and mental health inequaltites is a view without any substance whatsoever.

An often used quote from the disabled in this MSE group is “I want the same choices as anyone else – to have the career I want .” I agree, they should have exactly the same opportunity as the able bodied, but for the mainstream disabled majority it is going to have to be :

- subsidised at least to begin with by the non-disabled majority
- self sustaining
- equal in productivity to the able bodied

Most employers don't really care or think about the disabled other than the EA & DDA and even then only at paper level An employer makes widgits they care about the unit cost per widgit. When considering a disabled individual for a position in the company they want to know does s/he compare to the average of the rest of the workforce in terms of :

- can s/he be trained to the same level as this other workforce
- one trained to standard can / will s/he integrate
- productivity
- flexibility
- timekeeping
- absence

The disabled want to be bricklayers engineers hairdressers and work in admin, again they need to be able to compete as per the above with a sustainable productivity level. Some of the job types I have deliberately mentioned are clearly out of the question, this is also the case for hidden experiences of disability [ especially mental health conditions ] others however are very attainable. If the the disabled are going to escape the twin poverty's of economic [ disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people ] and social deprivation and isolation in society, the disabled themselves must undersatnd it is never going to happen unless the Access to Work [ ATW ] programmes [ 37,000 in 2009-2010 ] are massively expanded and the general taxpayer is prepared to pick up the tab for persoanlised employment support.

Disabled people of today want different things from those things the disabled of my youth wanted, a bit of extra cash and a Trotter Trading Plastic Pig was the norm for the 60's 70's and 80's, todays disabled want a mainstream lifestyle, and able bodied friends and lovers.

GlasweJen

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

In all previous recessions, all sections of society lost jobs, most people eventually managed to get back into paid employment, the disabled section of society however people having lost their job and never got back in.

The government spend 20 times as much on keeping disabled people idle [ £7b ] as it does on disability employment support [ £330m ] every £1 spent on Access to Work netts £1.48 back to the exchequer, the real benefit of course is the social inclusion and ' felt self worth ' benefit disabled people gain from being an integrated part of society in general and the workforce in particular. However you can't have Welfare to Work without work, and the assumption that there are thousands of employers waiting to give sustinence to the disabled by way of a supported let alone a self supporting job while supporting physical and mental health inequaltites is a view without any substance whatsoever.

An often used quote from the disabled in this MSE group is “I want the same choices as anyone else – to have the career I want .” I agree, they should have exactly the same opportunity as the able bodied, but for the mainstream disabled majority it is going to have to be :

- subsidised at least to begin with by the non-disabled majority
- self sustaining
- equal in productivity to the able bodied

Most employers don't really care or think about the disabled other than the EA & DDA and even then only at paper level An employer makes widgits they care about the unit cost per widgit. When considering a disabled individual for a position in the company they want to know does s/he compare to the average of the rest of the workforce in terms of :

- can s/he be trained to the same level as this other workforce
- one trained to standard can / will s/he integrate
- productivity
- flexibility
- timekeeping
- absence

The disabled want to be bricklayers engineers hairdressers and work in admin, again they need to be able to compete as per the above with a sustainable productivity level. Some of the job types I have deliberately mentioned are clearly out of the question, this is also the case for hidden experiences of disability [ especially mental health conditions ] others however are very attainable. If the the disabled are going to escape the twin poverty's of economic [ disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people ] and social deprivation and isolation in society, the disabled themselves must undersatnd it is never going to happen unless the Access to Work [ ATW ] programmes [ 37,000 in 2009-2010 ] are massively expanded and the general taxpayer is prepared to pick up the tab for persoanlised employment support.

Disabled people of today want different things from those things the disabled of my youth wanted, a bit of extra cash and a Trotter Trading Plastic Pig was the norm for the 60's 70's and 80's, todays disabled want a mainstream lifestyle, and able bodied friends and lovers.

Completely agree Ritchie,the country is generally not recruiting at the moment but even when it was it was difficult to get a job as a disabled person. What goes down should surely bounce back up again and I think it would be lovely if the savings made by taking 20% of people off of benefits on the DLA-PIP shift were put into funding work access schemes, training and basically funding investing in the disabled people of the country instead of leaving them to rot on the dole indefinitely.

Richie-from-the-Boro

It's difficult to find ' real ' figures, but the last half accurate set I saw [ in relation to the comments in this thread ] said :

Disability and employment statistics

Often society can disable people more than health condition or disability, with attitudes and assumptions preventing people from reaching their work-related goals.

Employment statistics show the imbalance between disabled and non disabled people in employment.

We believe everyone should have the right to work. That’s why we’re committed to supporting disabled and disadvantaged people into employment and to live more independent lives.

- there are currently 1.3 million disabled people in the UK who are available for and want to work
- only half of disabled people of working age are in work (50%), compared with 80% of non disabled people
- employment rates vary greatly according to the type of impairment a person has; only 20% of people with mental health problems are in employment
- 23% of disabled people have no qualifications compared to 9% of non disabled people
- nearly one in five people of working age (7 million, or 18.6%) in Great Britain have a disability
- the average gross hourly pay for disabled employees is £11.08 compared to £12.30 for non disabled employees.


Source: Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey, Jan - March 2009