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On Remploy – the Coalition is again out of touch with reality

July 19, 2012 2:57 pm

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Jessica Asato

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Today Remploy workers will go on strike across the country to defend their jobs, and they deserve our full-hearted support. As with so many of the Government’s cuts, it is the most vulnerable who are singled out time and time again.

The Coalition’s reasoning behind the closure of 36 sites is partly down to pure cost cutting, but also reflects a reasonable aim of ensuring that disabled people are not segregated into different workplaces. Yet again though, the Coalition is out of touch with reality. Of course it would be preferable that all employers made the adjustments and gave the support necessary for disabled employees to work effectively. It just isn’t happening in practice.

The Equality Act requires employers only to make ‘reasonable’ adjustments to enable disabled people to work. Whether they do so or not will depend on cost, the size of an organisation and practicality. Many small companies do not have the resources to make reasonable adjustments, which goes some way to explaining why the employment rate for disabled people, even before the UK economy went into recession in 2008, was less than 50% of disabled people of working age – 25% less than the employment rate for non-disabled people.

What makes Remploy so vital is that the market has clearly failed to give disabled people the opportunities they deserve. While employer attitudes towards disabled people have become more positive over the last decade, not least due to pioneering legislation from the Labour Government, disability hate crimes reached a record high this year. Closing Remploy sites, added to the failed Work Capability Assessments and the general anti-welfare rhetoric from this Government, cannot help but to create the conditions where desperately insecure people lash out at the disabled.

People who have disabilities and mental health conditions don’t fit neatly into a Whitehall shaped box. A local resident I have known for a while in my ward has had a serious mental health problem. Some days when I popped round to see him, he wasn’t even up to opening the door to me. After a referral to a fantastic local garden centre which specialises in training and supporting people with mental health issues, my friend started to regain his confidence, and just yesterday I met him looking super and back on his feet. It’s taken about five years, but even now he’s not ready for a workplace that wasn’t as supportive as his current job. His condition is certainly not improved by the anxiety created by the current witch-hunt for ‘shirkers’.

It is right that we listen to disability charities who continue to urge employers to make the necessary changes to give disabled people a job, but that doesn’t mean pulling the rug from the feet of people who are already in a job they enjoy and have created a community of colleagues who support them, as with Remploy. The pittance that the Government saves by closing Remploy will simply come back to the Treasury when those same disabled workers sign on for benefits because they no longer have a job. What the Government is doing lacks common sense.

So as the Government trots out the inevitable platitudes today about Access to Work costing less, and Remploy workers not being productive enough, think about Tony Collins who just recently carried the Olympic Torch in Essex. He’s contributed enough to his community to be given the honour of representing this country, but not enough for the government to allow him to keep his job. It’s a disgrace, and Labour must hold the Tories to account for it.

Jessica Asato is a Labour Councillor for St. George’s Ward in Islington

Alan Giles

I feel desperately sorry for the Remploy wokers, Ms. Asato, but let’s not try to rewrite history.

As with the Freud welfare reforms it was Labour which started the ball rolling back in 2008 (Peter Hain being the minister at the time).

In short, we made the bullets for the coalition to continue to fire.
treborc

”Closing Remploy sites, added to the failed Work Capability Assessments
and the general anti-welfare rhetoric from this Government, cannot help
but to create the conditions where desperately insecure people lash out
at the disabled.
Are you sure your talking about the Tories or your own lot, it was not the Tories who used green papers and the media and the BBC with it’s work shy scroungers programs it was labour.”

I could remind you of course about who started this off, it was labour.

But many of the charities who hope to make money from this by being paid to help the disabled into work failed to find anyone a job, down by me, in 2007 three Remploy factories closed and today not a single disabled person has been found a job even with an extra three Million quid being thrown at so called Charities to find these people work.

I will be honest Politicians have worked hard to tell us all about scroungers and the work shy, but one of the biggest lies has been that disabled people can work in the mainstream employment.

I know of nine people who gave up work at Remploy and not one of them were allowed JSA, and all of them are severely disabled, so these people now are at home none of them on any benefits because Labour stated if you can work you should work.

Like Miliband knocking on the door, he was obviously disabled and he could work, yes but doing what is the question or is it labour plans to stop all benefits.

This article is really taking the p*ss.
- Alan Giles
  
  I am fully aware Ms Asato will not have the courtesy to reply to any remarks we make, but before loyal LL readers castigate Treborc and me, and say how wonderful she is, may I invite them to read this article before Asato’s?:
  
  http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/29/11/2007/106649/Peter-Hain-backs-Remploy-plan-to-close-28-factories.htm
  
  It just proves that you can’t get a sheet of lavatory paper between right-wing Labour and Coalition policies – and it also (I blush to make the accusation) makes people like JA seem somewhat hypocritical.
  - treborc
    
    The truth it seems not good enough.
Graham Duke

Does no-one remember that it is actually Remploy who wish to close these factories as they believe, and have evidence of, better outcomes of the support given?

Remploy have said for years that factories are the wrong way for them.
- http://twitter.com/WestVaughan Vaughan West
  
  And at best shelf stacking at Tesco or Sainsbury is? Get real Mr. Duke.
  - treborc
    
    Well that’s a stupid comment, many of those disabled would love to have a job stacking shelves at Tesco, being disabled my self I would take the job now if offered and would not complain at all, the problem is we are not offered the task.
    
    I was told the public would be worried if they saw a disabled person stacking food, after all they would not know if your disabled or ill, and believe me that is not once or twice we get told that.
    
    Only four years ago with a well known Job provider the young lady who was my so called specialist , a specialist at 19 years of age, she refused to even shake hands until she put a glove on.
    
    Tesco stacking shelves is a very good job offer, not to be laughed at
  - Holly
    
    Why are shelf stackers so low in peoples opinions?
    
    Yesterday I took someone to task for berating bog cleaners & bar staff.
    Where would we be if these ‘lowly’ jobs did not exist?
    I reckon these types of jobs are MORE important to the well being of the country & the public than many others, and serve a greater purpose to society than many high paid jobs, yet are constantly berated.
    
    While some workers are choosing to strike, and only the small percentage of people using the service will be affected, just think what the affect would be if the shelf stackers, bog cleaners & bar staff withdrew their labour.
    
    More respect and value should be placed on these kinds of jobs, and then maybe, just maybe, more of the unemployed would not find it beneath them to take up these jobs.
    
    The next time you go into your supermarket and you pick up your purchases, or go into the toilet and it’s clean enough to use, or go for a drink in the pub, just give a thought for the people who made this possible.
    
    As for the Remploy closures, the budget for the disabled is being used for ALL disabled people, and many more of them will be helped into finding work that gives them a bit more independence.
    If it is working in a supermarket, doing a job that everyone in the country depends on, what is so terrible about that?
    Let them be included in the able-bodied working community if they are capable of doing so, and just watch them thrive.
    I doubt any one will make them do what they are not physically or mentally capable of, Tesco’s & Sainsbury’s in particular.
    - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
      
      “I reckon these types of jobs are MORE important to the well being of the country & the public than many others,”
      
      I’ve often wondered how we’d get on if all supermarket workers went on strike – a national emergency would be declared in a very short time. Certainly their paltry remuneration is at odds with their vital role.
      
      If supermarket workers were to become actively trade unionised there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to considerably improve their conditions.
      - treborc
        
        They do not just stack shelves which is what Tesco told me, you have to be able to do numerous jobs which is why they told me you will not see many people with a disability in Tesco, and you will in Asda, Asda signed up to labour claim to be employing the disabled while tesco pulled out
      - Holly
        
        It is not simply a union’s role to improve the pay, conditions and opinion of these low paid workers.
        It is something we should all be fighting for. The user and the worker.
        Unions go about fighting for change in the wrong way, usually alienating the very people they say they are trying to help.
        
        We should first start to put a ‘value’ on these jobs and stop demeaning them, then maybe the supermarket workers would think they have more public support, thus enabling them to fight for better conditions themselves, without having to involve unions, and their quite comfortably off bosses.
        
        Having said that, some of the perks in the retail sector are okay.
        I worked for a large DIY firm and we had 20% discount, first dibs at end of line stuff, 10% off other stores in the chain, including Super-drug, two staff bonuses each year, a share-saver scheme, a final salary pension, double time & a day in lieu for working bank holidays, and plenty of overtime if you wanted to cover for people on holiday.
        All in all shelf stacking is not to be sniffed at, whether in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Harrods, or the 99p store.
        Not sure whether it’s Lidle or Aldi, but the hourly rate at one of these is very good.
      - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
        
        You say it’s not a unions role to “simply” help shop workers but check out USDAW’s campaign page* (USDAW is the shop workers union) and let me know if you find something that is helpful towards shop workers.
        
        * http://www.usdaw.org.uk/ourcampaigns.aspx
      - Holly
        
        I actually said, ‘it’s not simply a union’s role to improve the pay, conditions and opinion of these low paid workers’.
        Meaning if these jobs were valued & respected more in general, and people stopped belittling their importance,
        thus allowing the employers to set pay & conditions to match the ‘lowly status’ applied by many, then & only then would pay & conditions improve.
        
        As long as people look on them as dead end jobs, the employer can, and will continue to set pay & conditions accordingly.
        
        Replace the word ‘simply’ with ‘just’ and you might understand what I was on about.
        Up to now the unions have failed to get the ‘shelf stacker’ the respect they deserve….Maybe the general public, who absolutely rely on these hard workers,
        could fight their corner a bit more.
        Even a little thing like putting stuff back where we got them from when/if we change our mind, instead of just dumping them back on any old shelf.
        Or picking up a ‘slip hazard’.
      - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
        
        It is the employer who contributes most to the “dead end job” status by paying low wages.
        
        And of course, we should all endeavour to be considerate and polite in our dealings with others, no matter who they are. This is a concern also addressed (with particular reference to shop workers) by USDAW (the shop workers union) through their Freedom for Fear campaign:
        
        http://www.usdaw.org.uk/ourcampaigns/freedomfromfear.aspx
    - Nemo
      
      “Shelf stacker” has become a euphemism for a part-time low-skilled job that potentially anyone could do no matter how poorly educated or unintelligent they happen to be. Same as “McJob” has become slang for a low-paying, low-prestige dead end job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of advancement. It isn’t personal or supposed to be disrespectful towards McDonald staff.
      
      As a matter of interest when a branch of Asda opened at the outskirts of the town I currently live in it was inundated by something like three thousand applications for various kinds of work from people in and from outside the area, including many dozens of university graduates. (Or so the local news broadcast claimed.) It’s one way to keep the economy going I suppose. The people who work in Asda anc do their shopping in Tesco whose employees can get their groceries in Morrisons whose staff can purchase their food and drink from Sainsburys whose boys and girls can… well, you get the idea.
      
      Three cheers for Great Britain’s service economy!
      
      Hip-hip!…
      
      … come on now…
      
      Hip-hip!
      
      … for goodness sake…
      
      Hip-hip!
      
      … fair enough.
      - Jon
        
        It could be worse, sport, and will be if the Tories get their way. The poor devils stacking shelves might not only be doing a low-prestige dead end job that require few skills and offers very little chance of advancement the “McJob” might not be worse than low-paid and be a “work experience” placement forced on somebody living on unemployment benefit supposedly to make them more “employable”.
        
        Ha! You couldn’t make it up!
      - Limp Richard
        
        No more jokes or asides please about shelf stackers. They’d all be neurosurgeons don’t you know if they only had brains themselves.
      - treborc
        
        Limp dick great name
      - Hugh
        
        I’m unsure of your point.
        
        “It’s one way to keep the economy going I suppose.”
        
        Getting people into paying jobs? What’s the other way?
      - Nemo
        
        The point is the closeted circularity of a service economy won’t get the nation out of trouble. Money won’t flood into the country as inward investment, exports of goods and services to other countries will continue to be stymied, and the potential of many human lives remain unrealised. (You probably don’t need two or three university degrees to refill supermarket freezers.) People driven into doing low-skill, low-paid jobs most likely won’t pay any direct taxes at all (too poor) and still be reliant on all sorts of benefits and top-up payments in order to survive because multi-billion pound profitable businesses only pay minimum wages (or very low wages) to their workers coupled with “flexible contracts” offering too few hours to make their minimal earnings financially viable and the welfare budget balloons inexorably.
        
        But never mind… once you get your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder you can ascend and be promoted until you end up running the darned company you once stacked shelves for yourself!
        
        Darn tootin’!
      - treborc
        
        But of course the people we are talking about in the main are those with serious disabilities or learning disabilities the bottom rung of a ladder is higher them most have ever been or expect to be.
        
        We are not talking about educated fit people here if you have a disability and a degree you have a good chance of finding employment, if your suffering from Downs syndrome just finding somebody to listen to you is hard enough being taken seriously almost impossible
      - Hugh
        
        Whereas paying people benefits while they’re not working promotes open circularity?
        
        And, no, you’re right, you don’t need a degree to stack shelves, but I doubt the majority are graduates; I also doubt many economies (service or otherwise) genuinely have 50 per cent of jobs that require a degree, but that’s another issue.
      - Nemo
        
        The point is that an economy like this will always stagger about from one crises to the next, always have to borrow to keep the lights on, always be dependent on other nations for its food, energy and consumer goods and so on and so forth. It is impossible to enjoy the benefits of a perfectly functioning economy when so many of the workforce earn partial livings by opening doors for each other and serving each other fast food.
        
        Just watch what happens over the next few years, especially from the middle of next April onwards up to the next general election.
        
        And Labour aren’t much better.
      - Hugh
        
        Could you point me to the perfectly functioning economy we should mimic?
      - Nemo
        
        As far as countries go I quite liked living in the Netherlands more than anywhere else: stable, civilised, liberal, compassionate, well educated, tolerant and much less polarised socio-economically than the UK, I remember it will the greatest fondness.
        
        But I think that’s more down to the quality of Dutch people than anything else. Man for man and woman for woman Hollanders are better than the British by 1.609344 kilometres or a mile to you.
        
        As are their politicians.
        
        Which might be the lesson the British might best profit from. Better leaders means a better country to live in.
      - Hugh
        
        It must be because the Dutch are better people, because it’s certainly not because of their avoidance of a service economy: about 80% of the Dutch workforce are in the service sector.
      - Nemo
        
        Fair dos.
        
        In my opinion the Dutch ARE a much superior people compared to the English and possibly a notch or two above the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.
- treborc
  
  I suspect all those directors of Remploy will be found very good jobs in Remploy interworks or some other public sector position .
  
  The top job for the CEO is £150,000 plus £35,000 bonus, if the task is that difficult and profits that low, why the Bonus.
  
  We know that labour wanted Remploy factories closed, we also know that disabled people are the first out the door when firms have to cut back, it will be interesting to see where Mr mathews will end up back I suspect in one of the many Public sectors jobs he has held no doubt he will not find it hard to find work.
  - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
    
    You could be right there trebs – feather bedding for the directors while the rest are thrown to the wolves.
    
    And on the sidelines, those who have accepted the Sainsbury shilling opportunistically wring their hands over an outcome they previously supported. No wonder the loss of trust in politicians has become a problem for established political parties.
    - Alan Giles
      
      Totally agree Dave. Of course Ms Asato will not deign to respond to any critisisms we make – if she is not too busy helping Progress no doubt she will be giving the benefit of her lifetimes experience to the remortgage queen Tessa, to whom she is some sort of advisor. (How and why for God’s sake?)
      
      I don’t know what angers me more – the deceit and hypocrisy of articles like this one (where was she when Hain started it? – was she writing impassioned essays then?) or the patronising idea that we are too stupid to realise that Labour has had a vole face (or pretends to have so done).
      
      I sometimes think it is for the best that the 2015 election will result in another hung parliament (which I think becomes increasingly likely), because all three parties show a contempt for the electorate
- Alan Giles
  
  Graham, It is certainly not the Remploy workers who wish to see the factories closed – perhaps their directors live in Duncan-Smith land, and are so out of touch with reality and thus imagine that the employees will all find nice new jobs next week where their every need will be catered for.
  
  Meanwhile back in Britain 2012, unemployment remains high even for the able bodied. Many employers these days regard being over 40 as a disability in itself – they want young, able-bodied (preferably low paid) staff.
  
  But given that we still cannot get away from the fact Labour List has allowed a very disingenuous article to be published – Ms Asato, like Liam Byrne when he pretends to be so affronted by the coalitions Freudian welfare reform bill, refuses to acknowledge that it was the Labour government that started this outrage, and had not Hain started this process and Brown allowed James Purnell to institute Freud, the coalition would have had to start from scratch, and given our current woeful economic situation they might not have done so.
  
  Until Labourites like Ms Asato are prepared to be honest with us, frankly they do not deserve to form the next government
- Hugh
  
  I’d want to know what their better way is first. I think we have enough charities in recent years who have decided that actual charity work is too inefficient and that they are more effective putting their energies into lobbying.
  - treborc
    
    Again a local charity which had the contract to find the disabled people jobs, stated we cannot employ the disabled because we have steps into the Office, asked how would the disabled get in they said and I kid you not, ah yes we better sort that out.
    
    I was turned down for a job with them , because I have a disability, you would be shocked how many disabled people these charities actually employ.
    
    One charity was on TV with me talking about helping people find work, I asked him how much was the contract worth he said it was private, but I had the FOI and it was £2 million, I asked him how many of your staff are disabled , he said that was private, but I had that information as well none, I asked how many get the lowest wages, he said that’s as private, but he employed sixteen people all under twenty.
    
    I asked how long has he been going now six months how many disabled people had he found jobs for he said large number, how many turns out none, he said in the end employers were just not interested.
    
    I then asked him what job did he have before he went into this charity, he was a CEO of the local hospital and was laid off, so the government suggested he go down this route. wages £120,000 not to bad is it
    
    hard to believe sometime
http://twitter.com/WestVaughan Vaughan West

Why has Islington Council just taken a contract off Islington MIND and given it to Remploy to run a jobs at risk programme for residents with mental health issues. You really could not make this up.
- treborc
  
  Well it’s easy to make a profit when all you have to do is say, look we are helping people, the problem is to many of these work focus groups are now classed as charities it’s pretty obvious now Remploy is not a charity.
http://www.themoronmormon.com/ TheMoronMormon

The Prime Mentalist Closing Factories & Remploy Staff Losing Their Jobs – At The Same Time Forcing The Severely Disabled Into The Job Market With IDS Savaging DLA. ‘Out Of Touch’ Doesn’t Begin To Show The Contempt & Disgust Voters Have For Cameron.
Dave Postles

Too little, too late. The unions campaigned against the closure and Unite organized a collective e-card of commiseration for the workers.. Where was the Labour Party? Never a peep.
- Alan Giles
  
  Exactly, Dave. It makes Ms. Asato’s crocodile tears even more irritating, and it really makes you question just what – if anything – Labour now believes in.
Winston_from_the_Ministry

How many Remploy factories did labour close?
MonkeyBot5000

“…the employment rate for disabled people, even before the UK economy
went into recession in 2008, was less than 50% of disabled people of
working age – 25% less than the employment rate for non-disabled people.”

Is that 50% of all disabled people of working age, or just those able to work?

Some disabled people will never be able to work so they shouldn’t be counted as unemployed. We don’t want to give the government more ammunition when it comes to forcing the sick to work.

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