People with learning difficulties should be paid less.

[Drabarni]

The latest to come from CONSERVATIVE.
I think I must be missing something. Yet people will vote for these people why?
What do they offer the average working family?

There are many people with learning difficulties who are carrying out their normal day to day living, doing the same job and as well as someone without learning difficulties.

I've not seen anything other than discrimination from this party.
Anyone who votes for them are openly voting for discrimination as it's not like they don't know.

I understand what Rosa Monkton is saying. I have a relative with a number of developmental and learning difficulties that mean that while he may be capable of carrying out basic tasks he's slow and less consistent than someone without those disabilities would be. He worked for more than 20 years as a kitchen porter in a residential school for young people with learning disabilities. The school employed people with learning disabilities where possible. The job gave him social contact, a reason to get up in the morning and just enough money to get by if he was careful. The people he worked with became his second family and assisted him with all kinds of things he couldn't manage on his own. He loved his work.

That school was shut down three years ago: austerity and cuts. He hasn't worked a full week since. He's with an agency on a zero hours contract but because he's slow they only call him in (mainly cleaning and kitchen jobs) as a last resort. He's been bullied and insulted. He's been in debt ever since the school shut and depression has crept up. I saw him a few weeks ago and he's put on a load of weight and clearly isn't washing and shaving. Work can give people a sense of self-worth and independence and dignity.

It's an old article (2017) and it's not talking about people with learning difficulties but people with learning disabilities

The definition of someone with a learning disability is someone who has an IQ under 70 so few people with a learning disability are living and/or working independently without some level of support.

The title of this thread is utterly wrong.
"Disabled people should be paid less" is not the same thing as "Let learning disabled work below minimum wage"

You're right. The original Tory to suggest that disabled people should be paid less than the minimum wage was Lord Freud - back in 2014.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/15/tory-message-disabled-lord-freud-minimum-wage

It's not a Tory policy. It was the opinion of one councillor.

Sally-Anne Hart is the Conservative candidate for Hastings and Rye, the constituency represented by Amber Rudd, whose majority was only 346 at the last election. Hopefully the good citizens of Hastings, including those unemployed who Rudd accused of moving to Hastings for easier access to benefits, drugs and drink, will consider the Conservatives' record when voting next week.

No way.

A system that allows for some people to be paid less than min wage due to disability is a fuck of a slippery slope.

We have a system that helps fund the extra help people with disabilities need in work - that should do more and should be improved.

For those who can only work minimally, with extreme supervision, there needs to be an option to pay them properly and provide that or they find voluntary places where that supervision is available.

If someone cannot do the job... then they cannot do the job.

Where’s the link from the Conservative party saying this, rather than one MP

if I’m correct learning difficulties are listed under the equality act as a Disability so actually the paying them less would be against the law as they are basing it on someone having a disability and being paid less.

It may also be that people then don’t disclose disabilities

At the moment many of those with learning disabilities are not paid at all or are having to pay as the way employers/charities have to get round this is to offer ‘employment’ as ‘training’. It would be good if there were some middle ground so it can be called ‘employment’, even though the main purpose is therapeutic, and for the individual to earn from the role. May be something like apprenticeships? But then there may be issues with benefit entitlement.

For the avoidance of doubt I am not talking about individuals who are capable of filling an otherwise properly paid role.

If they did lower the wage for people with LD this is exactly where it would lead.

What Thingybob said is pivotal, ity seems to me.

YY @longtimelurkerhelen I linked that on page 4. I found it on youtube a while ago when i watched an old World in Action doc on housing.

Geez, I saw the thread title, saw it's in AIBU and came on to rip the bastard thread maker a new arsehole. But it's just the contemptuous Tories, so you're safe @drabami

@HeIenaDove Sorry for the repeat, must have missed that

I watched it a couple of months ago and was so shocked and disgusted, it stuck with me.

In theory, this idea has some merit. Let’s say I have special needs - I’m able to work as a fruit picker, but I’m twice as slow as an average worker, so the farmer will never give me a job. Result - I’m unemployed, demotivated and stuck on benefits.
Now under this scheme, suppose the farmer can pay me half the going rate, and I pick half the average amount of fruit. My income is then topped up with a benefit credit. Result - I have a job, motivation and dignity, the farmer gets his fruit picked at a rate he can afford to pay, so he’s not subsidising an unprofitable worker, and I only cost the state half as much in benefit payments, as I’m earning half of it myself.
Win/win, no?

No worries Helen I was WTF when i watched it.

metro.co.uk/2019/12/06/tory-candidate-says-disabled-people-paid-less-dont-understand-money-11280594/?fbclid=IwAR0WZLNlj1XeUgpO_E3bYEMc0ZGoubfGfDtmVYxiiL-NcohTXh21IHRVPwQ

I saw it earlier, it's disgusting. Not that it makes it any difference to how bad it is but the fool of a woman who said it is in a marginal seat so she hasn't even got the brains to know when to keep her mouth shut.

@Babdoc That would be great but, they probably wouldn't get any benefit credit and if they did the trouble is, when the fruit picking season is over, the job centre will insist they take any work or be sanctioned.

Also it is open to abuse.

Hands down the most insightful response on this thread was by @churchandstate - it is so telling that only one other PP has mentioned it. I will repost it in the hopes that maybe one other person will read it and re-evaluate the kind of society we could be, if there was any will for it:

If a person’s disabilities present a hurdle to them entering the workplace, they should be supported by society, and activities provided to keep them stimulated and - if they wish to be - productive. The idea that their “human dignity” resides in packing stuff for Amazon, cleaning toilets in Boots or working the oven at Greggs is risible.

Also I bet at least some PPs on here have a health condition (I'm particularly thinking of MH conditions, given how common they are), or their partners do. Once you start saying people with LDs can be paid less, where does it end? I'm autistic and have MH problems but they have hardly ever affected my work and I promise you I am much better at what I do, and much more productive than lots of my colleagues. But I can guarantee my employer would jump at the chance to pay me less than NMW if they could, why wouldn't they? If that happened I would just quit work. Because no, as a disabled person my life ambition is not to work for less than minimum wage doing a 'meh' job (or worse, a very unenviable one). I would rather just not work in that case and occupy my time doing other more valuable and interesting things. But next thing you know, anyone with a heart condition can be paid less than minimum wage, what if you get cancer? You will be less productive then right? 1 in 2 of us will get cancer and many of those people will be in employment. Should you get paid less than NMW whilst you have cancer, what, until the consultant signs to say you're in remission? How would that even work? This is utterly ridiculous and I agree with PP that it's absurd how many people on this thread can't see why!

A system that allows for some people to be paid less than min wage due to disability is a fuck of a slippery slope.

Indeed. Here we have Hart suggesting that people with learning difficulties should be paid less than the minimum wage. Previously it was Lord Freud suggesting that people with disabilities should be paid less.

What next? People over a certain age should be paid less - actually, something similar exists as older warehouse workers who cannot keep up with the frantic picking and packing rates demanded by employers are not being employed or are only offered zero-hours contracts at peak times.

People below a certain age not being paid the same as their older colleagues? - step forward those under 18, under 20 and under 25.

And so it goes on - the return to the piecework, job insecurity and sweatshops of 19th century Britain. One of the central platforms of the Britannia Unhinged Conservatives is to abolish inconvenient laws such as NMW and to let employers get away with whatever they can. Johnson wants to deny employees the right to strike (today the transport workers; tomorrow you). The move to an American-style health insurance system would mean that people would be dependent on having a job in order to have adequate health insurance - putting them at the mercy of whatever Ts&Cs that the employers want to impose for fear of losing their jobs.

There are those on MN today claiming that Corbyn wants to turn the UK into a 1970s socialist utopia, whilst loudly supporting Johnson and the Conservative's declared aim of turning the country into a 1870s dystopia.

^ 100% agree with both

Can’t stand the Tories but really this is one Tory councillor making a hash of defending an article. The article in question was more along the lines that Babdoc talks about above.
However it’s not a great idea...pay the person a living wage and then a subsidy to the employer for additional workers .

simply

A few have said they have a problem with the title but I just quoted what I saw.
The irony is someone suggested spin. I wouldn't have a clue where to start, honestly.

For those who can see the long term impact of something like this gives me hope for society.
We live in scary times for the vulnerable whatever the reason.

Drabarni i have a problem with the title. its makes it sound like you agree with it.

The idea that their “human dignity” resides in packing stuff for Amazon, cleaning toilets in Boots or working the oven at Greggs is risible.

What is wrong with any of these jobs?

For many people with LD, as has been mentioned, work isn’t just about work. It’s more than that; it’s social interaction, it’s routine, it’s sense of purpose, a feeling of achievement, contributing to society, being exposed to new experiences and so much more.
I’ve seen people say “oh my daughter has LD and did a degree”. The problem isn’t as pronounced for people who have reading and writing skills. The problem is for people who are at the more severe end of the spectrum and traditionally, would have probably spent all day at a day centre and nobody would have even broached the topic of work.
There are people out there who have very high needs and would need specialist support in a job but they’re not being given the opportunity. By requiring NMW, it means they will never get a look in and they will never get the opportunity to improve their self esteem and all the other important things afforded to most of the rest of us. Work isn’t just about the pay cheque at the end of the month for many, many people.

@Schuyler That is where volunteering should come in. Worth and satisfaction is not just measured by paid work.