CWU Disability Conference report

Capability tests and benefits cuts become a matter of life and death

29th October 2013
Life for disabled people in the workplace and in general society has got worse under the ConDem government to such an extent that lives are at risk. That was the resounding message from this year's CWU Disability Conference.

Delegates from across the UK met in Chester on 26th October and shared their experiences of the daily tragic impact of benefit cuts on disabled members. People are attempting suicide under the stress while others are dying in poverty while awaiting the results of appeals against essential income being taken away, conference heard.

Calls for action included active support for groups campaigning for the repeal of the bedroom tax, and the replacement of Atos - the occupational health adviser employed by Royal Mail and also the work test assessor and subsequent disability benefit adviser employed by the Government.

Marion Brain (Birmingham, Black Country and Worcester branch) said that Atos had left one of her branch members without a penny for six weeks: "Instead of removing the barriers to disabled people they are making the barriers higher. We have to oppose this company. They are only concerned about making money."

Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) member Brian Booth listed some of the fundamental problems: "People can't have face to face meetings when they need them, the person is distraught, reports are rubbish and they quite happily ill health retire our members then have to wait, subject to appeal, for very lengthy periods of time. What that does to an individual's health is atrocious. "

Brian reminded delegates that Atos are also used by the government and that, out of the 1.8 million cases that the company judged as fit for work, 600,00 went to appeal and a third of these won. "Some people who have been judged fit to work went on to die before their appeal was heard, which is disgusting. We don't think Atos is fit for purpose," he said.
Tony Pedel from York and District Amal branch described Atos as Royal Mail's vehicle for threats, intimidation and removing people from the company.

Conference also urged the union to get BT to end the company's increasing emphasis on managing people with a medical condition out of their role where they are still capable of undertaking it. They said BT is driving through unfair performance targets but not making reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities.

There was a string of examples from speakers who knew of disabled members who have been undertaking the same role for years, but are now being pushed out of their jobs by BT because the company is increasingly using and abusing MCC process (managing changing capabilities).

Jason Reynolds (Capital branch) explained: "These members are having their jobs taken away where all that has changed is the targets. They are being made unemployable without reasonable adjustment. This questions where it leaves BT with the Disability Discrimination Act."

Gail Wright, (Birmingham, Black Country and Worcester) told conference: "We've had three people attempt suicide this year by people told they could be out of a job". Afterwards Gail added: "Their situations were made worse by the issues brought up by discrimination at work due to their disability. And its not just happening at our branch."

Joyce Stevenson from Scotland No. 1 branch was among the who attacked BT's target culture. "BT just seems to be about unfair performance targets. When people ask for an explanation as to how they have set a target it seems to be a target plucked out of the air."

Describing his own experience, one speaker recalled: "The problem is that the managers don't have a clue. I was put on the MCC process but they concentrated on what I couldn't do, not what I could do."

DAC member Jeffrey Till said too many managers ignore the fact that "the process is supposed to be about them doing everything they can to keep you in the job you are doing."

Anne Nickolson was among those who pointed to BT's contradiction in public appearance and actual approach: "They employ disabled people but don't do a lot about keeping them."

Meanwhile, the Conference supported the DAC motion for the union to negotiate with Royal Mail on the introduction of a reasonable adjustments card system with all businesses in the Royal Mail Group.

Looking beyond the workplace, delegates agreed that the union should back the abolition of the bedroom tax encouraging support of groups such as Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) and the Anti Bedroom Tax Federation.

West London branch's Linda Kietz said: "Many disabled people need an extra bedroom. The bedroom tax needs to be repealed now and we must support the groups fighting for this. If it's not bad enough being disabled, you've got Atos on your back and now the bedroom tax."

The law only affects people in council or housing association homes who are deemed to have a spare room, forcing people to pay extra rent, or move. DAC member Annmarie McCall pointed out that the bedroom tax only hits vulnerable people in our society.

Guest speaker Adam Lotun from DPAC, addressing delegates from his wheelchair: "The bedroom tax is an abhorrent piece of legislation. There are so many things wrong with it. It is unfair, undemocratic and downright immoral".

He is among the thousands of disabled people fighting to reclaim justified and essential benefits that have been taken from them after years.
"We estimate that about 1,700 people have died or committed suicide when they've been told they have lost their benefits or their job; some have died while waiting on appeal," Adam concluded.

General secretary Billy Hayes told Conference: "When you hear the distressing stories about the bedroom tax you know what a scandal it is. Eighty per cent of people with severe disabilities across the EU do not have a job. It's quite clear that we are not all in this together." He said that an increase in hate crime against disabled people was "exacerbated by the dehumanising narrative of the media."

He congratulated the tireless work carried out by the DAC, supported its continued success in campaigning on behalf of the most vulnerable in society, and said that lobbying remains important because "this government is no friend of disabled people". Further success by the union means "We've got to move from being the patient to being the doctor. That means we have to solve things," said Billy.

The proportionality and representation review is a major focus of the union, he said, to ensure that that the union's structures are representative of its members.

"Hidden" disabilities came under the spotlight when Conference delegates agreed that the union should hold an awareness week to make union activists, workers and managers aware of the needs of people with disabilities such as chronic fatigue syndrome, schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. Another discussion supported the need to increase awareness of of neurodiversity and the impact that conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention deficit disorder have on people in the workplace.

Read Billy's speech in full on Billy's blog.

National equality officer, Linda Roy and DAC chair Tony Sneddon set the tone for some of the key themes of the conference when they opened the event.

"Support for disabled people is being eroded by this Government," stressed Linda. "We will do everything we can to give disabled people a voice through campaigning, talking to employers, taking employers to task and lobbying Parliament."

Tony added: "Austerity measures are putting disabled people at severe disadvantages compared to our able bodied colleagues. Disabled people are poor and fifty per cent live in poverty. We will continue the fight against discrimination and unfair and unjust treatment."

Also guest speaking was Ruth Stafferton who was invited to explain the work of Cancer Research UK, which depends entirely on donations. The biggest proportion of its expenditure is on laboratory research on cells. Thanks to the charity's groundbreaking work on early diagnosis, prevention and drug trials, survival rates have dramatically improved since the 1970s. However, explained Ruth, the charity's forthcoming challenge will be dealing with rarer cancers which people will develop having survived initial cancers.