Should you be forced to work for no pay if you are terminally ill...

[MayaAngelCool]

...mentally ill, or disabled?

here

I am very tired so perhaps I am reading this incorrectly. But this seems to be horrendously cruel!

It's one thing if working is a personal choice for people in these groups. But this almost seems to have an Arbeit Macht Frei philosophy behind it - we will make the most vulnerable in our society work for nothing, because work is GOOD for you!

Vile.

AThing, you've missed the point of my sarcasm. Subsidies in theory: no problem. Huge subsidies when they're threatening to enslave vulnerable people: big problem. Which of our healthy MPs would carry on working for nothing?

Last year MP Philip Davies said that the disabled should work for less than minimum wage. I think the bastards were testing the water for this by him making those comments.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but actually a lot of the seriously chronically ill would be better off in prison.

Heating, square meals, laundry. Someone with a duty of care to at least notice when you haven't been able to change your sheets for six weeks or manage personal hygiene without help. No having to transport your carcass to compulsory interviews 2 bus rides away when you can't even walk to the bus stop. No starvation tactics if you can't perform impossible "work".

And frankly some of us don't get out more than once every few months anyway, and get treated like shit on the bottom of someone's shoe and constantly told we're bad people.

It might not be fun being in prison, but we'd probably be at less risk of deterioration, secondary illness and death.

No, as someone said when are the government and press bringing in the workhouse? How much more scapegoating will it take for it to be socially acceptable?

Did Camerons dad or son get treated like this?

This isn't anything to do with the Davies/Chope stuff - reviled by all and rejected by both colours of administration over the years; and completely different in both general intention and specific detail. They were on about abolishing MW for everyone (the disabled weren't even mentioned in their private members bill; just used in rhetoric about it).

BTW:does anyone have a source for any of this other than the Guardian?

The article describes fears about what might happen, but gives no description of the actual current state of proposals.

And what it describes isn't news - some will go into WRAG, some in WRAG might do a version of workfare, the drafting of the Bill doesn't contain a time limits.

It all hinges really on whether the right people will be in WRAG. I am concerned about the apparently blanket stance towards the terminally ill, and I am concerned about the assessment process for WRAG (not least as the Coalition has shown itself so far incapable of producing sound administration).

Neil O'Brien from Policy Exchange defending workfare for disabled people on Newsnight last night (on iPlayer from 15:20 mins).

Edith, you need to remember that the WRAG is not the top chunk of people who were on Incapacity Benefit: it's the middle chunk.

The top chunk - who are able to do a small amount of work but not enough to earn their living or who are employable only by an extremely adaptive employer - have now been designated Fit to Work and no longer Disabled. They apply for JSA on the same terms as everyone else. They have disappeared from all discussion of the Disabled, because they aren't Disabled.

WRAG is the group below that. Who can do "limited amounts of work" even by the DWP's current standards. They might be able to do a few activities which resemble work - eg type on a computer some days but not others - or their health might be not far below the Fit to Work threshold, even if it's deteriorating or they're terminally ill.

The Support Group below that is basically the Ivan Cameron group (don't mean to be personal, just want well known example) who cannot do anything that looks like work.

Newsnight was about "this suggestion that disabled people do workfare" - which must have been the day's discussion of the WRAG doing forced work.

O'Brien opened his mouth and said, ""when you say disabled people, these are people who are completely fit to work".

Thanks, Nilgirl.

I wasn't meaning to indicated unfettered support or enthusiasm for any of this. I am very concerned about the lack of administrative competence shown by this administration to date and, if they live down to their record on this one, the consequences are worrying.

Thanks also for that link, Niigirl. Funnily enough I too was looking for an alternative report and found nothing on the Indie. I'll watch that item when DD is asleep.

Im suprised the Govt actually has a 'too disabled to work' group. dd is as disabled as young Ivan was. She could be a draft excluder. Clearly IDS hasnt thought of this yet....

Any thoughts on the immorality of forcing sickand/or dying people to work for corporates and private companies? I could just about get my head around the thought-processes behind workfare for the able-bodied, provided they are made to do work which benefits the entire community, such as public park maintenance or street cleaning, or for non-profit organisations such as charities.

But TESCO???? ICELAND??? POUNDLAND???

Please, anyone out there reading this thread, ask yourself how proud you feel to live in a country which which will force terminally ill and permanently disabled people to work for profit-making companies such as the above, for:

Nothing. Not even minimum wage. And the Government want to remove the time-limit for these "Workfare" positions - people will be forced to do them for an indefinite period (ie till the DROP DEAD) in order to receive £67 a week to live on.

Sainsbury and Waterstones have pulled out of the Workfare programme because they are afraid of shareholder revolt have developed a sense of social responsiblity. All of us, (really) are potentially only one visit to the GP away from a situation like this.

actually i think the policy has been very well thought out

make the terminally ill,cronic illness disabled etc work work work,thus making their health worse physically and mentally and probably shortening their lives one way or another through stress,more complications in illness,mental breakdown etc,basically early death

result less benefit payments,nhs spending,council provision and more

this was posted in jest but im sure you get my point

utterley heartless and am horrified at the proposals

Fucking hell! I paid more than that in my staff canteen when I was working at a SUPERMARKET for my dinner. 8 years ago. So they get sausage and mash for £2.95, yet 8 years ago I was paying £3 for that out of my NMW wages?!

WTactualFuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

So MY taxes then were giving MP's cheaper food than ME?!

Why don't they just legalise assisted suicide so that people can at least have the choice between becoming a slave or getting the hell out of here by dying

Nothing surprises me with this evil 'government' now

Thekidsrule, I think you might be onto something there. Perhaps they had a team viewing of The Great Escape at the DWP and took inspiration from the section where the blind soldier Blythe inadvertently causes the death of his friend who was helping him to escape.

Clearly the message our Dear Leaders took away is: when the shit hits the fan, the sick will only bring us down with them, the bastards. You just can't afford to have sick people weighing you down in a recession, so something has to be done. Obviously they can't get away with using firing squads in this day and age, so killing them in the workhouse is the next best thing, and all the better if they expire after faithfully ensuring that aisle three has its full complement of baked beans.

The ideology behind these attacks on the sick is well explained by this article: "New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare". It's free to read, but you may have to register.

The idea that work is curative and morally virtuous is explicit in papers by the UnumProvident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University, which is a key ideological source in welfare restructuring:

"This follows Parsons's theory of the 'sick role', which he viewed as an individual's deviance from the social norm. He understood society as existing in a state of equilibrium, with individuals functioning in their allotted roles. The sick role upsets this equilibrium because it provides individuals with privileges and exempts them from normal social responsibilities. In order to restore balance society must recognise the sick role as an undesirable state and individuals must accept their moral obligation to recover as quickly as possible and return to work. Waddell and Aylward explain the high levels of IB claimants as arising from a breakdown in this conditionality. The sick role is now assumed to confer a 'right' to incapacity. The solution is to change people's behaviour by transforming the language and culture of welfare, and by using sanctions as a 'motivational tool' to prise people out of their sick role."

and also

"UnumProvident, in its memorandum to the Select Committee, pursued the same logic, arguing that even the most functionally disabled could be expected to work at some future point."

So adults as disabled as Ivan Cameron would have been are wished out of existence. And of course only paid work is a norm: the SAHM role doesn't seem to appear, either.

Or basically everything MayaAngelCool said in the OP.

A disgrace. Surely this must be a breach of people's Human Rights?

"individuals must accept their moral obligation to recover as quickly as possible and return to work." ...so the theory goes that if, for example, you are a young parent with terminal cancer and nine months left to live...and you'd like to spend as much of your scarce time as possible enjoying your time with your children and partner...Or maybe you want to travel the world for six months or go and stay with family on the other side of the country before your body starts to ravage itself...or...or... Basically, if you have any wishes of your own to spend your remaining days on earth happily it's tough shit?

Or if you have a disability which significantly, but not totally, limits your capacity to work, you have an obligation to sacrifice your remaining energy and physical and emotional resources to bloody Tescos?

Because god forbid that a person with disability or a sickness should have a mind of their own!

Yeah, that's the kind of society I'd like to be a part of.

The notion that the "norm" for society is full-time paid employment utterly disregards the economic contribution of millions of citizens, from SAHPs to Third Sector volunteers (ahem, those delivering your Big Society, Dave).

Further, it disregards all non-economic roles. So a sick or disabled person is deemed to be upsetting the balance of society even when, despite limitations, they are managing to fulfil personal roles such as parent, neighbour, active citizen, etc.

In this model, societal value for a human being is created solely by paid full-time work.

That's an... interesting proposition. There's clearly also a significant feminist angle to this, on top of the disablism, given so many SAHPs are women.

Soooooo.....If I go back to work full-time, my uncontrolled epilepsy, that is a life-long, chronic health condition, will just magically disappear?!

WTF? Have they found the cure for all ills??!!

Will DD's Autism vanish? Will they manage to cure the severe asthma that hospitalises DS2 on a regular basis, and leaves him at risk of an attack if he walks faster than a snail's pace?! Will his Autism disappear? Will DD's heart magically reconstruct without open heart surgery? Will her learning difficulties be resolved somehow? Will their Hypermobility Syndrome suddenly stop making their joints painfully dislocate while they are carrying out everyday NORMAL activities? Like, erm, hairbrushing. Because that alone sometimes causes DD's wrists to sublux. DS2 is even worse - just holding a PENCIL can sublux (dislocate) his thumbs sometimes. I can hardly see them being able to do the heavy lifting that is required of a shelf-stacker (and I should know, I've been one previously, before I got retired on medical grounds...) without their SHOULDERS dislocating.

So where is this magical cure, and how do I get hold of some? Because I would LOVE for none of us to have these health problems.

Unum are talking a load of BOLLOCKS. No amount of shelf-stacking is going to cure any of us. I can't believe that the politicians truly BELIEVE this shit. Would Ivan Cameron have been able to shelf stack? Would it have cured HIS disabilities?? If so - then why didn't Shiney Dave and SamCam send him out to work in Tesco's? According to Unum, that would have cured him...

And more to the point - if WORKING magically cures all ills, then WHY was I retired on medical grounds from my 60-hr a week shelf-stacking job? Which made my epilepsy WORSE, because of the extra strain I was putting on my body.

It made me WORSE, not BETTTER.

To the point where even my employer, Asda, said that they couldn't continue to employ me because I was TOO ILL, and the job was making me WORSE.

And I was on MORE than minimum wage there - I wasn't 'working' for £1.92 a fucking hour. It still didn't make ME any better...

If work made disabled people's disabilities disappear, I would be the fittest, healthiest person in the country. I'm NOT.

Do you think the people at Unum who wrote that report have had a compassion bypass? Or just a lobotomy.

Actually, they probably HAVE had a lobotomy - after all, work cures all, so having had a partial lobotomy shouldn't be a problem...