Shorter Sarah Haywood: There are still some Tories in the Tory Party, and this is bad.

@1 Not sure how fair that is! Free-marketeering in people’s most basic rights and needs is a bit extrme for most Tories, I’d say.

I bet plenty of his colleagues have been facepalming over this all week.

haha. oh dear.

One of the many troubling aspects of Davies’ speech is that he prefaces his remarks about learning disabilities by citing a visit to a MIND association.

MIND are a mental health charity – they don’t generally deal with learning disabilities, which is specialist field with its own well established support sector, e.g. Mencap – and, in regards to employment, the issues facing people with mental health problems are very different to to those facing people with learning disabilities.

If he did encounter people with learning difficulties at a MIND then its likely that they’re people with relatively mild learning difficulties who also have a mental health problem as a comorbidity, which raises an even more complex set of issues.

In short, I don’t believe that he the first fucking clue what he’s talking about and that his entire riff on learning disabilities and the minimum wage is a complete pile of pig ignorant bullshit which he’s pulled out of his arse in the mistaken belief that he’s somehow hit on an arguable point – which he hasn’t.

There are, of course, different rates already for the NMW:
•£5.93 – the main rate for workers aged 21 and over
•£4.92 – the 18-20 rate
•£3.64 – the 16-17 rate for workers above school leaving age but under 18
•£2.50 – the apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship.

So, in principle, what’s so wrong about having a special rate for the disabled? Particularly (say) if it’s time-limited and the disabled people in question have been unemployed for more than 12 months?

“paul ilc
There are, of course, different rates already for the NMW:
•£5.93 – the main rate for workers aged 21 and over
•£4.92 – the 18-20 rate
•£3.64 – the 16-17 rate for workers above school leaving age but under 18
•£2.50 – the apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship.

So, in principle, what’s so wrong about having a special rate for the disabled? Particularly (say) if it’s time-limited and the disabled people in question have been unemployed for more than 12 months?”

Depends, how much less is an able bodied person worth?

In fact why not extend the principle to all groups that suffer discrimination. Why should a black person receive a wage equal to a white one, or a woman equal to a man?

We really are rolling back the progress in society, aren’t we?

Paul, given that a lower minimum wage doesn’t do much to help 16-20 year olds and that disabled people in my position have no lack of ‘work experience’ placements that never turn into full employment, this is one ‘right’ I do not want. I would never be able to live and work with dignity.

I fail to see what the point is in hectoring unemployed people for being unemployed, when there’s not even close to enough vacancies for them all anyway. Is there even enough for over 50% of them? Yes, maybe having a job will be psychologically beneficial for them, but brow-beating them isn’t going to make the employment opportunities poof into existence now is it? If they were in a position to create the jobs which they’re apparently too lazy to work, they wouldn’t be claiming fucking job seekers allowance now would they?

To add “optional” wage slashing to apply to the most vulnerable in society on top of this shitstorm is frankly disgusting beyond measure, and can only come from a man with a fine view of the inside of his rectum.

I fail to see what the point is in hectoring unemployed people for being unemployed…

Well, it’s never hurt the Tories before, and it’s kind of like transcendental meditation was to the Natural Law Party, i.e. a load of quasi-spiritual nonsense that they believe will restore some kind of underlying order via the power of faith.

Mind, I’m sure the NLP were after nirvana rather merely concocting a thin veneer of scientific babble to excuse a thirty year orgy of unforgivable, vicious bastardry.

“a load of quasi-spiritual nonsense that they believe will restore some kind of underlying order via the power of faith.”

There’s a lot of that going round…

What a mess – if he’d just suggested NMW should be scrapped would we be discussing it to this extent?
http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/

That is what he is suggesting Daz. His comments about disability were his argument in support of the Employment Opportunities bill, which virtually abolishes the minimum wage by creating an ‘opt out’ for it.

I suspect Mr Davies is not being entirely honest when he says he only wants to help disabled people get a job.

Fun fact: the minimum wage in Australia is AU$ 15, which is about £9.86. Someone working full time at this rate would earn just less than $20k/year, which is greater than median UK before-tax income [source].

@ 13 Phil Hunt

“Fun fact: the minimum wage in Australia is AU$ 15, which is about £9.86. Someone working full time at this rate would earn just less than $20k/year, which is greater than median UK before-tax income ”

Um, yes, but it’s a little misleading to compare full-time income to general income. According to the same source, median gross full-time weekly income in the UK is £499, or a little under £26,000. That’s more or less double your annual full-time income on the Australian minimum wage.

Paul Ilc, by that rationale what’s wrong with having a different rate for women or black people?

And Daz Pearce, yes, I would’ve blogged about the proposal to scrap NMW in anycase – whether others would’ve been as interested who knows. You’d have to ask them.

How many days before we hear some Tory Troglodyte asking for the red tape to be removed tat prevents the employment of children from cleaning chimneys? – this is exactly the sort of legislation that prevents up being profitable on the international stage.

– and no doubt there will be troglodyte sympathisers who will say “you know he didn’t really mean chimney sweeps, and he does have a point, child labour is holding us back on the world stage” instead of condemning the evil, vindictive amoral abusers they are.

@14,

You’re right, in that I wasn’t comparing like with like.

The point I was making was than a minimum-wage Australian is better off than most Brits, and (indirectly) that, although a lower minimum wage in the UK would allow some people to get jobs when they now couldn’t, the number of such people would be very small, and a much larger number of people would earn less than now.

@ 17 Phil Hunt

“The point I was making was than a minimum-wage Australian is better off than most Brits, and (indirectly) that, although a lower minimum wage in the UK would allow some people to get jobs when they now couldn’t, the number of such people would be very small, and a much larger number of people would earn less than now.”

While I’m not saying that your claim about minimum-wage Aussies being better off than most Brits is necessarily untrue, it really doesn’t follow from the data here. First, someone working part time may well be living with parents, at university getting most of their money from a loan, or have a high-earning partner/spouse, so the fact that they don’t earn much does not mean that they are “badly off”. It’s just not helpful to compare full-time and part-time wages.

Secondly, I don’t see anything about comparitive costs of living in the UK and Australia. I don’t know much about this, but I’ve heard Oz is expensive.

There is no such thing as compassionate conservatism.

Any one who believes in Cameron’s green wash is an idiot. The tories have not changed one jot, they are still a pack of wolfs.

Cameron is the English GW Bush.

@19 True that, after all that happened during GW Bush’s presidency, few people remember that he originally sold himself to the electorate with the idea of compassionate conservatism, that the state had to ‘get out of the way’ of people’s natural altruistic urges, so trim down government programmes that help out the poor, etc and thus ‘allow’ the voluntary sector to pitch in instead, which in content is exactly the same guff as “big society”.

I’m 49 years old, have Asperger’s syndrome and have never worked. In order to get my first job I need to be able to offer an employer something, and I think that being able to work for less than minimum wage might just do it.

I doubt that financially I’d be any worse off due to the complicated interaction between the various benefits I receive and the fees I have to pay to Social Services for my care.

“So, in principle, what’s so wrong about having a special rate for the disabled?”

Because it sends entirely the wrong messages about what disability is, and what the issues around it are.

Davies is a tory, which means he approaches social issues from the perspective of the economics undergrad (at best). Hence he sees the system by which people obtain jobs as a pure labour market. In this theory, if somebody can’t get a job, all they need to do is lower their wage demands (price) and they’ll get a job. He also sees employers as unwilling to employ disabled people as they think they are less productive. Hence his proposed solutions.

The only problem is it is bolllocks. Ok, so a person in a wheelchair isn’t going to be able to be a good bricklayer, but they can certainly do 90% of jobs out there that require computer or customer service skills. But the more important reason it is bollocks is because the process by which people get jobs isn’t by attaching a price tag to their necks and marching off to the labour market (with disabled people now allowed to put ‘reduced to clear’ around their necks for the bargin hunter employer).

It is, in most cases, by applying for jobs and attending interviews. Hence your ability to get a job largely depends on your ability to do interviews, rather than lower your wage demands. In fact offering to work for less usually fails you an interview as it makes you seem desperate.

There is no intrinsic reason why people with aspergers, facial disfigurements etc cannot perform equally as well as ‘normal’ people. With more severe impairments then there is no reason why 90% of jobs are not in reach if employers make special adjustments. So the issue is the way society constructs the process of how to get a job. Not that regulation prevents the market reaching equilibrium. This is standard social model of disability stuff, and the average social science student can get this in year 1. So it’s no surprise a Tory doesn’t get it, although I’d have thought somebody working for a housing association may know better.

Does Davies’ proposal make selection processes easier?

No.

Does Davies’ proposal make it easier for disabled people to find understanding employers who will make reasonable adjustments?

No.

What his proposal does do is remove the legal protections disabled people face. It means those disabled people already in work will immediately be singled out for cost cutting by employers, and those out of work will automatically have an additional barrier to work – they will be expected to work for less doing the same job. Given the stupidity of the benefits system, this means even less of an incentive to work (this is the bit where economics comes in )

It also reinforces the idea that people with disabilities are less capable of being useful than those without, and entrenches the idea that it is the disability that is the problem, not the attitudes and practices of HR departments and employers.

So that’s what is wrong with it.

Lee, you just made that exact same post on LeftFootForward. Are you wanting a discussion or a spam-match?

Hello Mason-Dixon

Yes, I have been posting on a few blogs because I feel strongly about the subject; and I feel well qualified to make this comment considering my circumstances.

It’s not about qualification; anyone has a right to express an opinion. But going around blogs making identical posts isn’t expressing an opinion: it’s saturation of debate. Respond to what the article says or what someone else says. If your only contribution to an issue can be summed up as ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’ then it might as well just be a poll rather than a discussion, like what the Mail website comments section usually is.

Being Aspergic I have my obsessions; and the problems I’ve had never finding work is one of mine. I do not agree with the liberal consensus of paying me benefits to do nothing and remain socially isolated. I want to work, and need to work, so that I can strive to become the best person I’m capable of becoming.

I heard a rumour that a seriously retarded man that had both arms and legs amputated during an industrial accident at the age of fifty was called to The Assessment for Work Test at ATOS.

During the medical the Unqualified Dodgy Doc/Assessor asks the retarded amputee patient, can you get an erection Sir ? The retarded amputee patient replies: Yes Doc.

Three days later the retarded amputee patient received a letter from The Dept of Work and Pensions informing him that he was passed fit for work because he could bounce to work on his penis and dribble over the flowers to water them.

This is only a joke but the reality of what the sick and disabled are being subjected to by these ruthless, evil Tories is not much different.

To Hell with the Evil Tories and I hope that they get a taste of their own medicine but sadly most people in society could not sink so low.

What ‘liberal consensus’ are you talking about Lee? If I searched this blog for a ‘liberal consensus on paying people not to work’ do you think I’ll find it?

The joke should have read: The retarded amputee was passed fit for work because it was considered that he could get a job in a florist/flower shop by bouncing to work on his penise and dribble over the flowers to water them.

I wasn’t specifically referring to this blog but society in general, and in particular the staff at the jobcentre and the various training providers I get sent to.

A long time ago there was a cartoon book called 101 Uses For A Dead Cat. This is a golden opportunity for a cartoonist to come up with 101 Uses For A Cripple, it may not sell many copies but it’ll probably be adopted as government policy

Lee, ‘consensus’ by definition means something widely accepted so to say ‘liberal’ and ‘consensus’ together would mean most or all liberals share this consensus. As this is a liberal blog, I would expect it to share the consensus you speak of if it were real.

But it isn’t real is it? It’s a poisonous idea spread by people that just hate the idea of statutory social security, including the training providers that sell their services to the jobcentres/DWP.

I don’t think the problem with unemployment among the disabled is something that is wrong with us Lee. We don’t cost too much, we don’t do too little. It’s in the employers and economy that the intervention is needed. With deliberate structural unemployment being the main economic policy for decades now, we never had much of a chance.

Its fuckwits like davies that should be earning less than minimum wage.

Vile excuse for a man.
He and his toryboy supporters should hang their heads in shame, not that they have any, but he and they have at least exposed how stomach churningly ghastly the tories really are.

“Its fuckwits like davies that should be earning less than minimum wage.”

Instead he cliamed £171,258 in expenses in 08/09 and claimed more expenses than any other Bradford MP.

The question for Cameron is: Is it the view of the Conservative Party that disabled people should be treated as second class citizens in the employment market, and if it’s not, shouldn’t Philip Davies have the whip withdrawn?

Sorry but that is not the issue is it? The disabled are treated as second class citizens in the employment market. This is an objective fact. No one will employ someone with disabilities at the same rate they will an able bodied person (or more accurately, few people will employ many etc etc). Their productivity is not the same and so their wages will not be the same.

The issue is whether it is better to price the disabled out of the work place and so leave them on the dole by pretending we care about them or allowing them to have and hold jobs.

So much for subtlety – spot on mate

What Davies has said is really an argument against the minimum wage itself. However, realising that this is not exactly a mainstream view anymore, he’s focussed on the disabled and ended up sounding like a fascist, which is a great shame.

Is there anything compassionate about pricing anyone out of work, be they unskilled, a school leaver, handicapped, whatever?

And why do those on NMW still pay tax and NI? If this is judged to be the decency threshold then it should be tax-free surely?

http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/2011/06/philip-davies-should-have-stuck-to-his.html

Hold on, so you’re simultaneously arguing that the NMW is too high and should be scrapped for ‘undesirables’ such as the disabled or other groups on the Daily Mails shit list but also arguing it is so low it should be taken out of the tax net?

The NMW exists to give everyone working a standard of living above the poverty line and to prevent undercutting of that minimum by employers seeking to exploit the vulnerable, which is the example given by Phillip Davies.

What he is arguing isn’t that it is wrong to discriminate, but that employers should be able to say to minorities and desperate that they aren’t worth the minimum wage and should work for a wage that will see them stay below the poverty line despite working.

I know it’s a Tory thing to do, and also ticks the ‘gives scroungers a kicking’ box that brings an almost sexual glee to some peoples hearts, but it is really about undermining the living standards of the poor and enshrining discrimination in pay as being completely acceptable based not on the work being done, but the colour or disability status or gender of the person doing it. You’ll literally have people doing the same job paid different rates because our society deems one group worth less than another.

What? No comment from Tim Worstall or Old Hobo?

And people wonder I use the term ‘vermin’ to describe these cunts? I have often heard it said that ‘we’ and the Tories want the same thing; it is just that we have different views on how to achieve that. Well I am sorry, I cannot see anything in this I want. I am no part of the ‘we’ that wants the mentally ill exploited in such a manner. If you are part of that ‘we’ then, you can go and fuck yourself.

As far as I can see there is no difference, in principal, between this and Nazi Germany. Goodwin away all you want, but you cannot deny the fact that what we are seeing is the results of drip, drip drip of propaganda from the despicable elements of the press in their remorseless attacks on those of our fellow citizens that are in most need of our protection. To suggest that either being mentally or psychically disabled should be treated as sub human I find totally abhorrent. These people will be given the ‘choice’ to opt out of society? They will be given the ‘choice’ to remove themselves from the human race? Yes, for ‘choice’ read ‘driven out’.

@16 That’s already happening in one US state, Missouri iirc. The Republicans there actually proposed the repeal of laws against child labour.

37. Ben2

What he is arguing isn’t that it is wrong to discriminate, but that employers should be able to say to minorities and desperate that they aren’t worth the minimum wage and should work for a wage that will see them stay below the poverty line despite working.

Well yes and no. It is not discrimination to say that workers who are not as productive as other workers should be paid less. Discrimination implies that there is something unfair about this. If workers are not worth the minimum wage, they will not be employed. Which is pretty much what happens to most of the disabled and a lot of the young.

I know it’s a Tory thing to do, and also ticks the ‘gives scroungers a kicking’ box that brings an almost sexual glee to some peoples hearts, but it is really about undermining the living standards of the poor and enshrining discrimination in pay as being completely acceptable based not on the work being done, but the colour or disability status or gender of the person doing it. You’ll literally have people doing the same job paid different rates because our society deems one group worth less than another.

If they were doing the same work, they would be getting the same wages. As women do and.or don’t. It has nothing to do with giving scroungers a kicking. It is a simple, observable, undeniable fact of life that those workers that are not as productive as other workers will be paid less. If you raise the minimum wage too high, the least productive workers – the disabled, the young and inexperienced – will lose their jobs. It is based entirely on the fact they do not work as well as other workers. They will not be doing the same work.

Now there is a simpler way to deal with this problem. We know raising the minimum wage means young people, the disabled and often women lose the chance to be employed. If we decide that we have a social need for these people to be paid a living wage, and I think we can agree we do, the only sane solution is for the government to top up their wages to some acceptable minimum. In effect the dole we are paying them now – and that is what your plans condemn them to – should go to supplement their wage packets. Thus the employer pays them what they are worth, they get the social and psychological benefits of working, and they take home a reasonable level of pay.

Everyone wins.

But instead what you insist is that they are priced out of the marketplace and they rot on the dole indefinitely instead. Essentially you are insisting that your need to feel morally righteous and superior to the Tories is more important than the damage you are doing to the disabled and other unemployed people. I cannot express how wrong that is.

39. Jim

And people wonder I use the term ‘vermin’ to describe these cunts?

No we don’t Jim. Neither you or Sally are any mystery to anyone.

I am no part of the ‘we’ that wants the mentally ill exploited in such a manner. If you are part of that ‘we’ then, you can go and fuck yourself.

Exploited? You mean, given jobs? Chances at a decent life? The same things that everyone else and their dog is entitled to? Can you explain what you mean?

As far as I can see there is no difference, in principal, between this and Nazi Germany.

Yeah Jim, we know. This is the problem. Not our problem. Your problem. You need to speak to someone about this. You really do.

Goodwin away all you want, but you cannot deny the fact that what we are seeing is the results of drip, drip drip of propaganda from the despicable elements of the press in their remorseless attacks on those of our fellow citizens that are in most need of our protection.

Yes I can. Because it is not true. No one is attacking the disabled.

“No one is attacking the disabled.”

A Freedom of Information request showed that in 2008/09 there were 86 disablist hate crimes reported to police which rose to 138 in 2009/10 – an increase of 60 per cent

A poll, released by Scope showed 56% of disabled people experienced aggression, hostility or violence from a stranger, with 37% of people saying people’s attitudes to them have got worse over the past year.

Over half of disabled Londoners have experienced hostility, aggression and even violence from strangers, because of their disability, according to a new poll reported by the BBC.

The BBC writes, on the poll of over 2,000 disabled people, that:

“Disability charity Scope, which commissioned the survey, warned a disability benefit crackdown was increasing prejudice…”

“Half of London respondents to the poll said they experienced discrimination on a daily or weekly basis.

“It also found that 63% of people with disabilities in London thought others did not believe they were disabled.”

To put the debate in perspective, only one per cent of benefit is fraudulently claimed and government statistics show ”tax evasion costing the public purse over £15 billion per year and benefit fraud just over £1 billion”.

@ 43:

You know perfectly well what So Much For Subtlety meant. Pulling up those statistics is just a red herring.

This is just the beginning of the Tory assault on the minimum wage. They hated it when it was introduced and they hate it now – I wouldn’t be surprised if Davies was put up to make this speech to detract from the larger issue at hand.

Don’t be surprised if this issue – the NMW – comes back into the political arena within the next couple of years. Especially if unemployment rockets.

@45 Well if the government would just pay employers wages bills then they’d be able to employ everyone, and no one need go without a job. Because as we all know, the only reason for the poor’s existence is to serve. /sarcasm

Seriously, it almost looks like the Tories are embarking on a new political ideology of “Neo-Feudalism” or something.

So Much For Subtlety, if the issue were productivity then most Autistic adults would have no problem getting employment. As it is, we’re the most disproportionately disadvantaged demographic in the job market.

Employers don’t hire disabled people not because they’re less productive; they do it for another reason they don’t want to admit.

@43

What’s really worrying is that those are the earliest the figures go back: the police were so unconcerned about disabled people that they didn’t even bother counting hate crimes until pressured to for years.

46. Cylux

Well if the government would just pay employers wages bills then they’d be able to employ everyone, and no one need go without a job.

Well yes. If we are going to pay benefits for people who don’t work, why not pay them benefits in the form of something like a tax credit that tops their wages up to a certain minimum? They would be able to employ everyone. And no one need go without a job. How about you drop the sarcasm for a moment and try to think of one thing wrong with this idea?

Because as we all know, the only reason for the poor’s existence is to serve. /sarcasm

Serve is your word. Everyone who can work should work. It enriches their lives both in a psychological and material sense. Why would you want to deny the poorest in Britain the chance at a decent life?

Seriously, it almost looks like the Tories are embarking on a new political ideology of “Neo-Feudalism” or something.

Yeah because giving money to the poor is feudalism. This is pathetic.

47. Mason Dixon, Autistic

if the issue were productivity then most Autistic adults would have no problem getting employment. As it is, we’re the most disproportionately disadvantaged demographic in the job market. Employers don’t hire disabled people not because they’re less productive; they do it for another reason they don’t want to admit.

Really? People with Down’s Syndrome aren’t being hired even though they are just as productive heavy machinery operators as everyone else? This is what you are claiming?

What reasons do you have in mind? I have worked in offices with people with very little in the way of social skills. Probably borderline autistic. I assure you that after a couple of screaming fighting matches with management and pretty much everyone else, productivity is indeed an issue.

As Mason-Dixon writes, I can confirm that people with a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome [a form of autism] such as myself face an unemployment rate of up to 95% – far higher than any other disabled group…including people with Down’s syndrome.

@49 Er yes we already give them money, you however want them to wank for coins.

“Pulling up those statistics is just a red herring”

They could not be more pertinent to the debate.That you dislike the truth they reveal is not unexpected.

Anyone who seriously thinks people with disabilities or those with mental health problems should have to work for less than the minimum wage is beyond redemption. They will try to conceal their backward almost medievil prejudice with a few token Thatcherite soundbites about job opportunities and productivity, but it fools nobody.

This vile man and most of his supporters lack even the basic common decency to know how repulsive his comments were though at least one had enough sense to realise “he’s focussed on the disabled and ended up sounding like a fascist”

Even that may be putting it mildly.

Ian Birrell, a former speechwriter for David Cameron, called Mr Davies’s idea a “revolting suggestion”.

If Cameron does not come out in the strongest possible terms against this deeply unpleasant man then he will suffer the backlash and be reminded of it every time the subject of reforms and disability comes up.

The disabled and mental health charities and organisations are in shock and disbelief about Davies extraordinarily damaging comments. They are not likely to forget this until Davies apologises or Cameron slaps him down hard for his offensive bile against the disabled.

53. far right filth

They could not be more pertinent to the debate.That you dislike the truth they reveal is not unexpected.

They are, of course, irrelevant to the debate. Being about a different issue and being the product of a self-interested lobby group and hence suspect.

Anyone who seriously thinks people with disabilities or those with mental health problems should have to work for less than the minimum wage is beyond redemption. They will try to conceal their backward almost medievil prejudice with a few token Thatcherite soundbites about job opportunities and productivity, but it fools nobody.

So how about we simply lower the minimum wage? Some disabled people will be able to get work at rates now above the minimum wage. So will some young people. Everyone above the old rate will continue to get paid at their old wage. So no difference really. Except you will be happy. What’s the down side?

In general people should be paid what they are worth. If they do not produce as much as some other people, why should they be paid the same?

If Cameron does not come out in the strongest possible terms against this deeply unpleasant man then he will suffer the backlash and be reminded of it every time the subject of reforms and disability comes up.

And the politics of the useless token gesture will have won out. The disabled will continue to be unemployed. They will continue to suffer. But at least the Righteous will not have to suffer looking on discrimination!

The disabled and mental health charities and organisations are in shock and disbelief about Davies extraordinarily damaging comments. They are not likely to forget this until Davies apologises or Cameron slaps him down hard for his offensive bile against the disabled.

So much the worse for them. Either they work with the interests of the disabled at the forefront or they push their own political and careerist barrows. This is a chance for them to choose.

Wow, so not only have you labelled the disabled as less productive and so employers should be compensated for taking them on, you feel you know what is in their best interests, even though you are arguing against disabled people in this thread.

You even accuse people of careerism, when sticking up for the vulnerable in society is career suicide in the Labour party now.

How do you feel Davies statements on paying the disabled below the minimum wage stack up with the government policy of closing or privatising the Remploy factories?

@ 41: “It is not discrimination to say that workers who are not as productive as other workers should be paid less.”

Davies, so far as I can find, didn’t say anything about them being less productive. He says they should accept below minimum wage to, in effect, mitigate the effects of employment discrimination, which happens because employers either *think* they’ll be less productive (this is a common perception but usually based on pure prejudice) or simply don’t want to work with them.

> “If workers are not worth the minimum wage, they will not be employed. Which is pretty much what happens to most of the disabled and a lot of the young.”

The minimum wage for the young is much lower than for adults already. This doesn’t appear to have helped their employment prospects in any field where they’d be measurably worse than adults: it presumably makes them a more attractive prospect *when all other things are equal*, but if so, that’s discrimination against adults.

> “If they were doing the same work, they would be getting the same wages. As women do and.or don’t.”

Women still routinely don’t, and insofar as the situation has improved it was because of government legislation. Before the Equal Pay Act, it was routine to offer female applicants lower rates of pay than men for the same job – not just for jobs where, say, men’s greater physical strength might be an asset, but for jobs where sex made NO difference. The invisible hand did not correct this. Your statement here appears to suggest that you don’t think irrational discrimination even exists – which suggests an extraordinary disconnect between you and reality.

> “We know raising the minimum wage means young people, the disabled and often women lose the chance to be employed… the employer pays them what they are worth…”

So – leaving aside the attacks on the disabled and the young, which I know you’re pretty shameless about – you also believe that women are worth less than men, and that being paid less is evidence of this. The market must be right because the market must be right.

>”If we decide that we have a social need for these people to be paid a living wage, and I think we can agree we do…”

Ah, and you accept that the wages they’d be offered would be below what they could actually live on. In which case, why on earth should they take the jobs? If your wondrous market operated the way its acolytes love to claim, nobody would ever be offered less than a living wage in the first place – a) because they’d be better off on the most meagre benefits, and b) because even if no benefits existed, if you’re going to starve to death anyway you might as well have some leisure time (and/or turn to crime, which would pretty much be the only option in this case).

> “… the only sane solution is for the government to top up their wages to some acceptable minimum.” Th-th-the GOVERNMENT? I’m shocked, SMFS. No, really, I am.

Paying these top-ups to the employees would wrap them up in a lot of red tape, especially since there would be massive tabloid hysteria about top-up fraud; it would also encourage companies to decide that their lower ranks were “worth” about a penny a year – no need to worry about setting wages too low if the government’s going to pick up the tab, and it frees up lots of lovely money for the CEO’s bonus, oh, sorry, I mean for “investment”, yes, I’m sure that’s what it would be spent on. (Investment in what, btw? Not in expansion, that’s for sure – no need to pay for that if the government’s going to cover your wage bill.) Being rated so low would, of course, do considerable emotional/psychological damage (not normally something I’d mention in an argument with a Tory, since they tend to dismiss it out of hand, but since you concede that unemployment causes emotional damage you obviously accept that there is such a thing), and to their future employment prospects. How would they ever rise out of the top-up zone, if every potential employer sees that their previous employer rated them so low?

Paying it to the employers would address a few of these problems. The burden of bureaucracy would be lessened, and shifted to quarters better able to bear it; the tabloids would certainly get less frenzied about potential fraud; the damage to the individual employees would be far less. Companies, however, would still game the system to line the bosses’ pockets at the taxpayers’ expense.

Once we introduce safeguards against that, what’s left is grants to companies that can show they genuinely need them so that they can hire more people. Even that might then be used to prop up unworkable companies, but it’s a lot more acceptable than either model above. It is, however, very different from what you proposed.

> “So how about we simply lower the minimum wage?” (@54)

Well, because you just admitted it doesn’t amount to a living wage. Also, because while economic models routinely predict that lowering the minimum wage WOULD increase employment if there were perfect mobility of labour, a perfect balance of power between capital and labour, and no frictional factors whatever, actual empirical studies of what happens here on Planet Earth, where none of those things is true, routinely show that it doesn’t.

The logical conclusion of cut, cut, cutting at the minimum wage is employing people for nothing at all. A large pool of unemployed provides a constant source of people desperate enough to take on unpaid “internships” (illegal in this country, but nevertheless commonplace until very recently): they can then be used to do the work of a paid person until they realise they’re being had, whereupon you drop them and take on another mug. I know of many people who have had the unpaid “training” period of their work extended repeatedly without ever getting an actual job; a few months ago, one CEO on the other side of the pond blithely told a Fortune interviewer that this was how she did business, ’cause not paying employees is so much cheaper than paying them: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/25/unpaid-jobs-the-new-normal/ The only reason employers DON’T do this is… the government stops them! Y’know, with that employment legislation stuff you hate so much.

And what are these unpaid interns living on? Well, generally they’re supported by their parents. Difficult to find time to sign on when you’re working full time, even for no pay. This means that those whose parents can’t afford to take care of them into adulthood can’t even get work FOR NOTHING, because the “jobs” have been taken. Any who ARE receiving government assistance are effectively already on the scheme you’re suggesting: the government is paying their wages because their employers don’t want to. Once again, as with so much else, the taxpayer puts up the investment and the private cowboys take the profits.

Neo-feudalism really isn’t too far off the mark. The aim is to create a class of effective serfs.

So Much For Subtlety, you know that isn’t what I said. Why did you change it?

FYI: interpersonal issues require more than one participant and the assumption that the Autistic is always to blame is part of the problem. Glad to also hear from someone apparently qualified to make a diagnoses of people.

This is typical tory logic;- the disabled are already discriminated against so let’s double the discrimination.

55. Ben2

Wow, so not only have you labelled the disabled as less productive and so employers should be compensated for taking them on, you feel you know what is in their best interests, even though you are arguing against disabled people in this thread.

Their best interests are not in dispute. This is an argument about means, not ends. If anyone disputes what their best interests are I have yet to hear them.

They are, by and large, less productive. This is simply a fact and it is not really open to dispute. If you feel otherwise, please feel free to hire some people with Down’s Syndrome and prove me wrong. I don’t think employers should be in any way compensated. Why do you feel a need to make this stuff up?

You even accuse people of careerism, when sticking up for the vulnerable in society is career suicide in the Labour party now.

Demanding that the disabled spend forever on welfare is not sticking up for the vulnerable. It is pushing an agenda at the expense of the weakest members of our community.

How do you feel Davies statements on paying the disabled below the minimum wage stack up with the government policy of closing or privatising the Remploy factories?

Well privatising them is a non-issue. But they should not be closing them.

56. Makhno

Davies, so far as I can find, didn’t say anything about them being less productive.

I am sure he did not say anything about them being warm blooded mammals either. Are you disputing that too?

He says they should accept below minimum wage to, in effect, mitigate the effects of employment discrimination, which happens because employers either *think* they’ll be less productive (this is a common perception but usually based on pure prejudice) or simply don’t want to work with them.

Sorry but that “in effect” is simply your assumptions about what he said. He did not. Nor is the rest of this comment anything but your editorialising. What he said was perfectly reasonable. A lot of disabled people work so it is not that there is a blanket ban on disabled people because employers think they will be less productive. On the other hand, a lot of disabled people are not all that productive and insisting they get the minimum wage means they will be priced out of the market.

But perhaps we can agree on a compromise – the law should be changed so that the minimum wage can be adjusted for productivity. If an employee can show their productivity is as high as an abled bodied person, they are entitled to equal pay. How’s that?

Women still routinely don’t, and insofar as the situation has improved it was because of government legislation. Before the Equal Pay Act, it was routine to offer female applicants lower rates of pay than men for the same job – not just for jobs where, say, men’s greater physical strength might be an asset, but for jobs where sex made NO difference. The invisible hand did not correct this. Your statement here appears to suggest that you don’t think irrational discrimination even exists – which suggests an extraordinary disconnect between you and reality.

There is no evidence of irrational discrimination at all. There used to be some discrimination against women but I doubt there was much. Women do actually get paid the same as men when you adjust for life style choices. Women without children get paid more or less exactly the same as men. Without the Equal Pay Act as we can see in other countries with weaker laws like the US. The invisible hand did and does correct for this.

So – leaving aside the attacks on the disabled and the young, which I know you’re pretty shameless about – you also believe that women are worth less than men, and that being paid less is evidence of this. The market must be right because the market must be right.

It is absurd for you to claim what I said was an attack on the disabled. Par for the course I guess – smear when you can’t argue. I don’t believe that women are worth less than men. I believe that many women make choices that make them less productive workers and hence are paid less. The market is right because this happens to be true. And it will go on being true whether you like it or not.

Ah, and you accept that the wages they’d be offered would be below what they could actually live on. In which case, why on earth should they take the jobs?

Because the rest of us have no obligation to fund people who could be working. Because working is good for them. Because working is what people who can work should do. Because work frees. Welfare does not.

Paying these top-ups to the employees would wrap them up in a lot of red tape, especially since there would be massive tabloid hysteria about top-up fraud; it would also encourage companies to decide that their lower ranks were “worth” about a penny a year – no need to worry about setting wages too low if the government’s going to pick up the tab

It could hardly be more red-tape driven that the existing system. And besides, we have a massive bureaucracy in place to do this work already – the Inland Revenue. Sending people extra tax credits, or whatever system is used, would hardly be difficult. It could be made even more simple than that – mail everyone a cheque for some minimum amount if they are registered as in work. Lower the tax threshold so that you pay tax from the first penny. Simple and effective.

As for lowering wages, employers might like to do this. As soon as the number of unemployed people reaches zero (well, the natural rate) they won’t be able to as they will have to bid up wages. We will grow our way out of this problem.

Being rated so low would, of course, do considerable emotional/psychological damage

Yeah sure. As opposed to the well known benefits of being on the dole. You are reaching for any excuse to protect the industry that leaches off the disabled. Why?

How would they ever rise out of the top-up zone, if every potential employer sees that their previous employer rated them so low?

The same way anyone else would – by showing experience and skills which means they are worth more. How do you think anyone gets out of that low zone? You still being paid what you were at 17?

Well, because you just admitted it doesn’t amount to a living wage.

I don’t think I did.

Also, because while economic models routinely predict that lowering the minimum wage WOULD increase employment if there were perfect mobility of labour, a perfect balance of power between capital and labour, and no frictional factors whatever, actual empirical studies of what happens here on Planet Earth, where none of those things is true, routinely show that it doesn’t.

Actually the evidence that minimum wages impact on the lowest paid is over whelmingly strong and not open to dispute.

The only reason employers DON’T do this is… the government stops them! Y’know, with that employment legislation stuff you hate so much.

And because few people are so stupid. But notice the flaw in this argument – the government creates a situation where young people can’t get a job. They are then so desperate for work experience they will do an internship. Which the government then bans as well. The solution here is clearly not more laws and regulations but less. If the government stops creating the situation, the situation will go away.

And what are these unpaid interns living on? Well, generally they’re supported by their parents.

And so we move away from the real issue – the disabled – to what really motivates the Left – the plight of the children of the upper middle class. No internships where I come from mate.

Neo-feudalism really isn’t too far off the mark. The aim is to create a class of effective serfs.

Although quite how making sure people are employed amounts to serfdom remains unexplained. A good thing too or we would all see how lame this argument actually is.

“They are, by and large, less productive. This is simply a fact and it is not really open to dispute. If you feel otherwise, please feel free to hire some people with Down’s Syndrome and prove me wrong. ”

You’re proven wrong by the single example of extremely productive disabled people who do not proportionately experience a gain in employment prospects as a result, but instead have it worse than virtually anybody else.

@60 You may well be arguing with the deliberately obtuse.

60. Mason Dixon, Autistic

You’re proven wrong by the single example of extremely productive disabled people who do not proportionately experience a gain in employment prospects as a result, but instead have it worse than virtually anybody else.

If you could find any such people you might have a point. I would tend to think that they would be in employment – as about the majority of disabled people are.

“Their productivity is not the same and so their wages will not be the same.”

In some cases yes, in many other cases no. Eg: 2 people go for a call centre job, same qualifications and experience. One uses a wheelchair, the other doesn’t. Is the productivity of the disabled person really different?

Who is likely to get the job?

Stop teasing the nazi troll. He can’t help his hate speech against the disabled and poor.

@62,

I gave you the clear example: Autistics. You’ve made a heroic effort to avoid addressing the point.

Regarding the number of disabled people in work: if you go by the DDA definition then most disabled people of working-age are in work- *just*. If you restrict the criteria to those with ‘work-limiting’ disabilities it falls to 40%. The figures available do not specify how much of this is full-time work.

Only 15% of Autistics are in full-time work; they experience no proportionate gain in employment prospects despite productivity that is very competitive.

@ 60:

“You’re proven wrong by the single example”

No, because his point refered to disabled people in general. One single counter-example wouldn’t invalidate the argument that the average disabled person is less productive than the average abled person.

If it is fascist and unconscionable evil not to have a minimum wage, does that not make those states without a minimum wage de facto fascist? No matter what anyone decrees the nominal minimum wage to be the real minimum wage in all places at all times is precisely zero. That is the real wage you will get if you can’t get a job.

Consider this if you believe the minimum wage has no impact on the demand for labour. Some people are campaigning to have a minimum price for alcohol. In other words a price floor above the equilibrium price. Now do they want that minimum price in order to give alcohol suppliers more profits. Alternatively, they could believe that a minimum price floor will reduce the demand for alcohol. Which scenario is the whole point of minimum alcohol price campaigns?

“One single counter-example wouldn’t invalidate the argument that the average disabled person is less productive than the average abled person.”

Because it’s a stupid argument. What matters is the particular job in question, and the particular disability in question. Eg: a wheelchair user probably can’t work on a building site, but – with the right qualifications – can work in IT, Call Centers and numerous other jobs.

Similarly a disability like a facial disfigurement is only a disability due to wider attitudes and prejudices. Productivity has nothing to do with it.

Exempting disabled people from min wage does nothing. A building site manager isn’t suddenly going to start hiring wheelchair users for physically demanding jobs because he can pay then £1 a hour. But the call centre already employing several wheelchair users all of a sudden gets a free attempt to lower wages for disabled people despite the fact job performance is identical.

Richard, that’s an argument about the min wage in general. Whilst such a topic has never been debated on the internet before, I feel it would be better if we could stick to the topic of whether exempting people with disabilities would be a positive step.

From the thread on BT:

“Monitoring has shown that disabled candidates performed as effectively – if not better than – their non-disabled colleagues. BT also found that disabled employees remained with the company for longer (67% of disabled people recruited have over one year’s service).”

Productivity is a red-herring. Used by people ignorant about what disability is.

@67 False Equivalence, besides if employers cannot afford to pay their workers enough to live on, then surely the marketplace should eliminate these failing employers, rather than calling on the government to prop them up with subsidised labour.

@ 69. Planeshift

Exempting people with disabilities would not be a positive step. I don’t believe in stigmatising people nor do I believe it progressive to follow policies that are more likely to harm the people we are trying to help.

@ 71. Cylux

It is not false equivalence. The only thing that would be different is the respective elasticities of demand. It is inconsistent to believe that a price floor on alcohol will reduce the marginal demand for alcohol and not believe that a price floor on labour reduces the marginal demand for labour.

“…besides if employers cannot afford to pay their workers enough to live on, then surely the marketplace should eliminate these failing employers, rather than calling on the government to prop them up with subsidised labour. ”

It has nothing to do with whether employers can afford to pay workers more and everything to do with the marginal revenue that they can accrue from that input of labour.

They are not failing as can be seen by them employing even more expensive labour. Why is that if they just want government to subsidise labour? If that was the case those on low wages would all be employed and there would be significant unemployment amongst higher wage workers. In reality we consistently see the opposite. The problem here is you and others are trying to apply invented moral constructs to an amoral labour market and are perplexed when the model does not conform to the invented moral construct. The morals that we are applying is workers should have a minimum income and I agree. Since they are our moral standards we should make up the difference. It is quite clearly not subsidised labour as the income goes to the employee. The alternative is unemployment not more expensive labour for employers.

I’ve been reading the comments on this issue of paying the disabled less than the able bodied, most of them roundly condemning the fascist attitude that gives birth to this kind of venomous talk. I also see that there are one or two people who are actually trying to support the comments by Davies, justifying them as a rational argument about helping the disabled into work. Why do’nt you just admit your true feelings towards the disabled, that you consider them a drain on resources, a bit of hard work, or, let’s be honest, some people do actually see the disabled as second class. For some, it stems from a religious background, for others it’s a sense of superiority. The fact is, if we claim to be civilised and humanitarian, there should’nt even be a debate about it, the debate should be about the fact that the NMW is a paltry amount, designed to keep people in the inbetween state of having just enough to survive, never enough to thrive. New Labour hailed it as the first step towards lifting everyone out of poverty, turns out it was just one of so many ‘soft right’ plans to fiddle the books and make it appear that we were progressing as a society while in reality, we were simply trapping people in a cycle that is very difficult to escape. If the disabled are being targeted now, the able bodied but uneducated are next. Imagine the scene, a school leaver, willing to work hard, wanting to achieve something in life applying for a job but, because they did’nt get grades that were average or above, the employer could say to them, “You can have the job, but I’ll only pay you £4:50 ph, because a smarter person would take less time to train up”. After that, who’s next? People with a comical accent, those with tattoos, plain looking types underpaid, because they might not be as popular as a good looking person, which could cause tension in the workplace? The potential for exploitation is interminal if people like Davies are actually taken seriously, so treat him and his kind with the contempt they deserve. If you should happen to meet him in person, make sure everyone within earshot knows that it’s him. Let the people decide his fate, hopefully a disabled person with a mental illness will be nearby and take it upon themself to beat the living shit out of him. Or we could just starve him of the thing he desires most. Publicity. Ignore the obnoxious little prick and treat him with the disregard he deserves.

@72 It is a false equivalence because Labour is not a luxury consumer item, it is not something that you can take it or leave it, something that you might treat yourself to at the weekend, you either need the labour or you don’t. If you don’t need it, then it doesn’t matter what the bottom end of the price range is, you won’t bother getting any more in, and for low-skilled jobs you’ll be very quick to take advantage on the price-floor dropping out to cut your employee’s wages down to the ground, thus causing the taxpayer to pick up the tab, via tax credits or similar, of ensuring that your labour-force is actually capable of say, getting to work on the bus, feeding themselves etc.

If that was the case those on low wages would all be employed and there would be significant unemployment amongst higher wage workers. In reality we consistently see the opposite.

Do you know why this case exists? Because generally the higher earners have unique qualifications or skills or connections that the employers desperately need, they have the employers by the short and curlies, so it is facile to try and treat the entirety of the workforce as interchangeable, they are not, but neither should we be prepared to allow for those at the bottom end to be exploited on a very confused basis.
Employers are not supermarket shoppers with a handbasket, they’re people running a business, they’re as unlikely to hire more than they need because it’s dirt cheap than they are to order more steel than they need to build a house because the price of steel happens to be low. Stop being simple.

@66,

I’m going to have to ask you to go back and pay attention to the actual argument. There was no ‘average disabled person’ used as a qualifier and it’s irrelevant to my point. My point was to demonstrate that productivity is not a factor in the reason why disabled people are disadvantaged in the job market. Autistics are what prove the claim about productivity false because this demographic is such a stark example of disproportionately low prospects compared with productivity. If it were really true that disabled people are disadvantaged because of their productivity then it should also be the case that when broken down by diagnoses and prognosis, there will be some more and less productive than other groups. Autistics should be near the top, but are instead close to the worst off.

If you bring averages into it, that doesn’t help his argument; it makes it worse. The average productivity of a demographic group has no baring on the ability of the person sitting in front of the employer to do the job.

@ 74. Cylux

“…it is not something that you can take it or leave it…”

It really is that is why there is such a thing as unemployment. If labour had no elasticity of demand the demand for labour would be constant. This really comes down to believing that a wage does or should contain some sort of moral message about values. Some folks just do not like to think about labour as just another commodity and a commodity is exactly what best describes labour.

Here is liberal economist Paul Krugman.

” And yet there is a problem with markets: They are absolutely and relentlessly amoral. Labor, in a market system, is just another commodity; the wage a man or woman can command has nothing to do with how much he or she needs to make to support a family or to feel part of the broader society. ”

As I said applying morals to an amoral system is not going to get the desired outcome. If we want to raise the incomes of those at the bottom of the income scale and I agree that we should we need to engage in after-market interventions. Everything else is just wishful thinking that we are doing good when all we are doing is transferring the problem to other areas i.e. less employment opportunities.

“…taxpayer to pick up the tab…”

We pick up the tab anyway from people needlessly out of work.

“…so it is facile to try and treat the entirety of the workforce as interchangeable…”

Exactly. All workers are not interchangeable and they do not all have skills, experience etc that have the same value to employers. So why do we say they have?

” Employers are not supermarket shoppers with a handbasket, they’re people running a business, they’re as unlikely to hire more than they need because it’s dirt cheap than they are to order more steel than they need to build a house because the price of steel happens to be low. ”

The price of labour certainly is not the only concern for employers, just a factor. Look at it this way. We hear that there is an oversupply of houses compared to demand at X price. Does that mean people do not want to buy houses or do they not want to buy them at that price? What if the £200k house that is oversupplied fell to 1p, would it still be oversupplied?

Changing living wage to minimum wage at the end of the Paul Krugman article comes up with.

In short, what the minimum wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a minimum wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away.

Keynes said about the left in England that they have “feelings in place of ideas”. Nothing has changed.

http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/LivingWage.html

I disagree with Krugsman: markets are only amoral when people are amoral. Markets do nothing without participation; any outcome the markets are responsible for, the participants are responsible for. The more active the participant, the more morally responsible.

77
Totally agree, markets can only happen because of human activity, they are not some kind of independant phenomenon. Blaming everything on ‘the market’ is an easy way of absolving responsibility and, at the same time, infering that nothing can be done to rectify the inefficiency/unfair outcome.

“Edouard Balladur, the former French [Gaullist] prime minister, memorably once asked: ‘What is the market? It is the law of the jungle, the law of nature. And what is civilisation? It is the struggle against nature.’”
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.05/culture.html

If the statutory minimum wage were set at £1/hour then it would have little to no effect on employment. If it were set at £10/hour then it would.

There’s no point in arguing about the principle of a statutory minimum wage while overlooking the crucial matter of how high the minimum wage is set.

@76 I noticed a passing complaint about collective bargaining in that there link. Which is always suspicious. Makes me think it’s all about power and who wields it.

Bob, would you agree that any minimum wage which has the desired and intended consequences will inevitably have undesired and unintentional ones?

http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/

And there you go. Everyone has had a poke at this and it comes to the same old shit. Three days after everyone has had a dig and everyone has had their say. But look, it appears that the Tory vermin have won, they have been allowed to ignore the real debate, and everyone has focused on the rather lacklustre response to Nazi ideology.

Let us not pretend. I despise the Tory Party and their jubilant response to the relevantly smooth ride they have had over this. But I have to concede this; They have driven this into our faces without too much bother. Okay, fair enough, Nazi ideology is now part of the political mainstream, but lets not rock the boat.

After all, we have bigger fish to fry. What that fish is, well middle class people have problems and God forgive they ever inconvenience them by going on about the weakest members of society?

Nobody should be overly concerned about the ‘rights’s response to this. All too predictable crap about people adding value to society and all that. Again Labour’s response regarding the weakest members of our society suffering is nothing if not predictable.

My problem is with the ‘Left’s response to this unadulterated, and orchestrated attack on the weakest members of our society. I have gotten used to the fact that the ‘Left’ normally agree with Tory ideology and I have also got to admit that I have got used to the English Left accepting Nazi ideology. I vote ‘SNP’ because I have seen the Right walk into default positions because the Right have frogmarched us into positions we would rather not take.

Surely, at some point we need to take a stand? Surely we need to stand up and say, ‘enough is enough’. Is there a backbone to the Left? If so, surely the ideological ending of protection of the weak is perhaps them agenda? Surely, having the poorest members of society ripped to pieces demonstrates what is wrong with our society?

SMFS @

No we don’t Jim. Neither you or Sally are any mystery to anyone.

You are a straightforward Nazi. I mean no offence by this, among your people, going after those people who have the least and the least able to defend themselves is considered strength. David Cameron and Ed, David Milliband are open to this. You wish to exploit the people who have least ability to defend themselves. That is Right wing ideology, but the Left want to see these people driven into the ground too. There is a Consensus on this.

Last week Kenneth Clarke made a gaffe, a gaffe that the Left decided to peruse to the fullest extent. We wanted the few ‘decent Tories’ taken down and we really achieved that.

Davis made no gaffe, of course. He said something that everyone on the Left has agreed with. The mentality ill and disabled nothing more than a fucking nuisance and we should really go after.

We have sometimes used analogy to attempt to make our points? What is the fucking point, exactly? If you cannot grasp the point that people are up to their gullets, then are you in any position to defend ourselves?

Does anything you find under such a search count as anything?

68. Planeshift

What matters is the particular job in question, and the particular disability in question. Eg: a wheelchair user probably can’t work on a building site, but – with the right qualifications – can work in IT, Call Centers and numerous other jobs.

And I suspect a lot of people in wheelchairs work in IT or call centres and numerous other jobs. Most disabled people are employed.

Similarly a disability like a facial disfigurement is only a disability due to wider attitudes and prejudices. Productivity has nothing to do with it.

Indeed. I suspect that very few people with facial disfigurements are out of work.

Exempting disabled people from min wage does nothing. A building site manager isn’t suddenly going to start hiring wheelchair users for physically demanding jobs because he can pay then £1 a hour. But the call centre already employing several wheelchair users all of a sudden gets a free attempt to lower wages for disabled people despite the fact job performance is identical.

The Call Centre may wish to do so but it is unlikely that they can. Because workers tend to be paid what they are worth. They can attempt to lower their workers’ wages, but those workers are likely to leave. Where it will make a difference is for those employers who will have to make some expensive work place changes, and so prefer not to hire the disabled. Suddenly they are offered a cash incentive to do so. And some will.

70. Planeshift

“BT also found that disabled employees remained with the company for longer (67% of disabled people recruited have over one year’s service).”

Relying on a tiny sample of 300 workers out of the tens of millions of disabled people proves nothing.

Productivity is a red-herring. Used by people ignorant about what disability is.

On the contrary, productivity is everything.

71. Cylux

besides if employers cannot afford to pay their workers enough to live on, then surely the marketplace should eliminate these failing employers, rather than calling on the government to prop them up with subsidised labour.

Sure. But that is irrelevant. Because a company may be able to offer to pay its productive able-bodied workers enough to live on, but not see the need to pay their less productive workers the same.

“y can. Because workers tend to be paid what they are worth. They can attempt to lower their workers’ wages, but those workers are likely to leave.”

As I keep repeating:

The process by which those workers will get new jobs isn’t by going to the labour market and plonking themselves on the shelf waiting for the employer to turn up with his loyalty card.

It’s by responding to job adverts, using an agency, spec cvs or whatever. Then going to an interview where they will be competing against able bodied people for the same posts.

Which means people with aspergers, facial disfigurements or other conditions that mean job interviews are more difficult, are going to find things difficult. Prospective employers will pick people who perform best in interviews, and are only able to estimate productivity. Often success in an interview comes down to whether the employer thinks you will ‘fit’, and how the rest of the team is. Particularly in the current situation where there will be several outstanding candidates for each position (Admiral in Cardiff now get 500 applicants per vacancy in a call centre – how on earth do you think their HR departments pick?).

So in this climate workers who find the interview process difficult at the best of times are going to face difficulty in leaving, and thus have little power but to accept reduced conditions

There was a chap down the road from me who paid his nephew with learning disabilities 50p an hour for year, that’s the model for Davis.

Davis also used the disgusting term service user when when defending himself and had a swipe at MIND as being only interested in themselves rather than people with disabilities.

The guy is an idiot.

I had an interesting email correspondence with this Tory MP last week. He was extraordinarily brusque. I must be a ‘hysterical leftie’. When questioned, I assured him that I had his full speech and his appearance on
Newsnight.

People at Mind may well have informed him that they would relinquish
the right to the minimum wage if they could be employed, but that does
not mean that it is the right thing to do- it is exploitation. What people suffering from conditions which make them vulnerable may be saying is that they would like the opportunity to enter the labour market. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. Disabled people are not cheap labour to be exploited; they are people
who need extra support.

Views such as the ones Philp Davies expressed set back decades of civil
rights campaigning.I asked him if on his advice, as a young woman recovering from a serious neurological illness which has affected my mobility, he thought I ought to offer my services as a lawyer for less than the living wage? No reply.