Prejudice against disability in society

[amber32002]

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publicationsandresources/Pages/InsightWorkfitforall-disability%2Cheal thandtheexperienceofnegativetreatmentintheBritishworkplace.aspx?t=Disability

The Equal Opportunities Commission has produced a 16 page report showing how often people with disabilities are badly treated at work. For any of us planning how our children earn a living in the future if they can, it's sobering stuff.

Interestingly, those with hearing, sight or physical disabilities will experience only a 3% chance of more bullying or violence at their workplace than people with no disability. But for learning disabilities/mental health disabilities, the figure is 167% more than those with no disability, they say.

They list all the different bullying behaviours and how it compares to people with no disabilities.

Injury from violence - 8.8% rather than 4.7%
Any sort of violence - 11.6% rather than 5.5%
Being criticised all the time - 22.5% rather than 13.4%
Gossiped about unfairly - 21.8% rather than 12.1%

So nearly 1 in 10 of us is likely to experience violence at work because of our disability - twice as many as if we were non-disabled, and those with learning disabilities etc have a particularly tough time.

A few days ago I put up a link showing how many cases the police had managed to get prosecuted - 141 for the whole country. Yet think how many thousands of people with disabilities are experiencing violence and bullying.

The Commission say they "will ask whether existing equality laws provide clear enough protection to disabled individuals at risk of bullying and harassment at work."

I think we can give them the answer to that one? That'd be 'no'.

Amber, this is awful and reminded me that I had to confront 30yr old BIL over some comments he was making this Xmas. He seemed to think it was acceptable to use the words "retard" and "spaz" with free abandon. He is an intelligent man and has a senior management job at a big firm. He must have used them in excess of 50 times on Xmas day, they are obviously expressions he uses all the time.
As we were at my in laws on Xmas day, I made it clear I found it inappropriate and very offensive but didn't cause a big scene. The IL's kind of chastised him a little but let it go (my parents would have been furious if we'd ever used those words!)
The next day, we were at our house. The first time either of those words came up, DH said sternly that we don't allow that language to be used in our home (and particularly around our child who has mild SN!!). I think the message got through but I was and still am livid about his ignorance.

It made me think, I bet he uses that language at work too and gets away with it. If I ever heard anything like that in my office I would report it to HR - I kind of hope that happens to him.

Looks like there's about 600,000 people with a disability who are in work.

So if 11.6% of them have experienced violence at work, that'd be nearly 70,000 people with disabilities who've experienced violence at work.

And the police and courts have managed to convict 141 people in a year.

Nope, can't get my head round it at all.

TallulahToo, there's been a recent case in the UK courts where a mum was bullied because her child had a disability, and she was able to claim against the disability laws. So there's definitely hope for you if you're covered by that same set of laws where you live. I'd contact a union/disability advice centre/lawyer if you'd wish to. Maximum payout is now £500,000 in the right circumstances and with the right case, by the way.

google Coleman for the case Amber is referring to, Coleman is IIRC one of the parties. That case established DDA applied to carers.

Drat.

Every time we think there's good news about the law, it seems there isn't. They want people to work, but make it impossible.

Looking at what was said by the European Courts about the case, the bullying because you needed to take time off for a child with a disability should have been a clear case of discrimination, but that final decision was only made in July last year. So your legal team may not have known about it or may not have written the right thing in the Statement about it if your case was before then.

Employers don't need to make 'reasonable adjustments' for carers, but they absolutely must not bully them about it.

We ahd to confront someone using spazzers on another site; the moderator didnt know aetiology of the word but immediately changed it so 'sad people' came up instead: DH (bless him) e-mailed the main poster s well and got an immeidate apology.

Sad thing si that almost every post he makes still contains the repacement words- its al very well apologising to an upset mate (althugh they dont all now each other they all have lots of friends in common and share a very small isolated hobby) but if you carry on its worthless.

Dh also got flack for having SN ds's from work: luckily situation (job?) was saved as high profile contract owner is involved witha charity we were faces of for a bit. Crap though. DH also has a colleague who thinks he should be able to get flexible working like DH (who notably does more hours for no more pay just over a longer week so shorter shifts) as he has parents who might get disabled one day

DS1 gets bullied daily; ds3 might but he wouldn't get it- or more upsettingly let us know if he got it (he takes in a lot more than he can show he does). DS1 at nine is developing depression, agoraphobia and eating disorders and I am scared for him but powerless.