Resistance notes Birmingham Socialist Resistance
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Disabled People Fight Back!
Description of cartoon: David Cameron is in a tank with the words ‘big society’ printed on the side. He is wearing a helmet and a camouflage top. There are also half a dozen wheelchair emblems painted on, as though they were confirmed hits. Under the tracks of the tank are various signs that have been crushed and broken. They include signs that read ‘United Nations disability rights convention’, ‘human rights’, ‘independent living fund’ and ‘article 19′. There is also a newspaper laying on the ground called the Tory news. This has printed on its front page ‘ Cameron condemns those ruthless dictators who have no regard for human rights!’. In front of the tank is a young wheelchair user. She is blocking its progress and is also glaring up at Cameron. Cameron has a surprised look on his face as the tank gun visibly wilts! Read more about this cartoon on Crippen’s blog at – http://crippencartoons.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/our-voices-being-heard/
Resistance Notes- Disabled People Fight Back The emergence of the disability rights movement and the inspiring activities of Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) have been some of the bright spots of recent years. As Bob Williams-Findlay notes, "Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) was formed by a small group of disabled people after the first mass protest against the austerity cuts and their impact on disabled people held on the 3rd October in Birmingham, England. The march was led by disabled people under the name of The Disabled Peoples’ Protest. DPAC isn’t a formal organisation but rather a collective of individuals seeking to campaign alongside those who believe that disabled people should have full human rights and equality. Our campaign is for everyone who refuses to stay silent about the injustices delivered by wealthy politicians on ordinary people and their lives." This short pamphlet consists mainly of articles, posted on, or linked to from, the DPAC website, or otherwise available on the internet. Together they should give a flavour of the nature of the disabled rights movement, its activities and some of the arguments, debates and controversies within it. Socialist Resistance is the organisation in Britain of supporters of the Fourth International. Our tradition has long prided itself on a belief in the need for oppressed groups to organise in pursuit of their interests. To quote from our founding statement "Socialist Resistance stands in opposition to racism and Islamophobia and to the oppression of women, LGBT and disabled people. The best way to fight discrimination is through the coming together of those who directly experience it." Proceeds from the sale of this pamphlet will go to DPAC. Rob Marsden, Birmingham Socialist Resistance, April 2011 midlands@socialistresistance.org
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Disabling Lives: the impact of government policies
Source: http://socialistresistance.org/1772/disabling-lives-the-impact-of-governmentpolicies
Bob Williams-Findlay, Disabled Socialist and Civil Rights campaigner, outlines how the Government’s attack on public expenditure and the Welfare State increases the social oppression of disabled people. Slash and burn Earlier this year I addressed the Birmingham Against The Cuts Rally as a co-founder of the newly formed Disabled People Against Cuts(DPAC. We set it up to develop resistance, support, visibility and action against the financial assault on disabled people imposed by the Coalition’s spending cuts. October 2010 saw the first mass protest against the austerity cuts outside the Tory conference. It was led by disabled people under the name of The Disabled Peoples’ Protest. DPAC co-founders are the original Disabled Peoples’ Protest organisers. We returned to Birmingham because the City has experienced six years of a Coalition regime which has faithfully placed the interests of capital over the needs of disabled and non-disabled citizens. It has announced the most savage mauling of public services ever seen with £212m slashed from its annual budget at the expense of 2,450 jobs. As a former Planning Officer in the Social Services Department I’m aware of the fact that most of the services I was responsible for have gone and so too have services in the Third Sector where cuts between 20% and 60% have been experienced. Disabled people in Birmingham, like the rest of the UK, are facing a situation where instead of having our human rights enhanced through the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons we are undergoing a wholesale attack on our living conditions by the coalition government. Instead of developing schemes which would give disabled people control over their lives via independent living, we are witnessing disabled people being imprisoned in their own homes or facing the prospect of being forced against their will into residential care. The Tories complain about giving convicted prisoners the vote but have no qualms about imprisoning people with impairments who
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are considered “a burden on society” – in other words being unproductive and a barrier to increased profits is seen as a crime! Disabled people under attack The attacks on disabled people are widespread. It began under New Labour as former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell, backed by the Tory Press, used propaganda not unlike that employed by the Nazis to brand disabled people as lazy, fraudsters or ‘not really “disabled” at all’. The Con Dem welfare reform programme sees no less than fourteen separate attacks on the benefits needed by people who are either sick or unable to work due to either impairment related issues or disabling barriers within the labour market. Thousands of pounds is being wasted however by paying a company called Atos to assess “people fit for work”. Recently, the Daily Mail complained that too many of Atos’ decisions were being overturned on appeal. One person found ‘fit for work’ died from his illness only weeks after an Atos verdict. This is happening because the Department of Work and Pensions want to impose ‘the sick role’ on only a certain number of disabled people in order to paint others as ‘economically active’ because it suits the Government’s needs. It’s an age old ploy of creating two groups – ‘the deserving’ and ‘the undeserving’ poor. The Government is throwing thousands of sick and disabled people off benefits into a labour market when they know full well employment discrimination is rife, they have slashed and burnt the Access 2 Work programme which supports disabled people into or at work, and that it is impossible for the majority of disabled people to up sticks and look for work. The attack upon disabled people should not be viewed in isolation however because it is very much part of the wider political and social agenda. The needs of Capital require the dismantling of the Welfare State and this in turn requires an ideological shift in the ways in which disabled people are both seen and treated. Fighting cuts as part of the struggle against Disablism Many people are now familiar with the causes of inequality within capitalist societies, where issues relating to racism, sexism and homophobia, have been documented. Unfortunately, even within the Left, the issue of disablism is largely absent or not recognised from the perspective of disabled people. Since the late 1960s disabled people have challenged the dominant ideologies associated with defining “disability”. Rather than accepting “disability” as a ‘individual personal tragedy’ caused by the inability to fulfil 3
the expected roles – defined by “normality” and articulated through the measurement of loss of bodily functioning – disabled people argue they have social restrictions imposed on top of their impairments by the structures, systems and environments of specific societies. Within Capitalist Western societies the ‘medicalisation’ of people with impairments’ lives has assisted in creating the conditions whereby they live disabled lives – excluded from or marginalised within mainstream social activites. Disability therefore is a political issue; it is a form of social oppression. The paradox is that the manner in which disabled people ‘are taken into account’ – the negative stereotyping as ‘abnormal’, ‘victims’, ‘burdens’ or ‘vulnerable’ – ultimately leads to them ‘not being taken into account’. It is the nature of the capitalist system – created disabling barriers – not the the nature of an individual’s bodily restrictions that causes disablism. It is not our bodies that make us ‘vulnerable’, it is the ideological policies of this Government and the hatred being stirred up by the mass media. Together they have been responsible for the surge in disability hate crime disabled people are experiencing. For forty years disabled people have fought for their civil and human rights as a means of combating the disabling barriers found within society. Just when we were establishing user-led organisations to challenge and change the outdated public and third sector ‘dependency model’ approach to service delivery; the greed of the capitalist classes and the dehumanising economic system they rely on has started to kick us back to square one. Some disabled people are living in dread of what might be, others feel so battered they are considering ending their lives. Thankfully, there are pockets of resistance among disabled people, such as those campaigning with DPAC, who are not prepared to go down without a fight. We see the fight against the cuts as being part of the struggle against disablism; our right to challenge the oppressive nature of both the state and society.
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Lifting the lid on Disabled People Against the Cuts Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) was formed by a small group of disabled people after the first mass protest against the austerity cuts and their impact on disabled people held on the 3rd October in Birmingham, England. The march was led by disabled people under the name of The Disabled Peoples’ Protest. DPAC isn’t a formal organisation but rather a collective of individuals seeking to campaign alongside those who believe that disabled people should have full human rights and equality. Our campaign is for everyone who refuses to stay silent about the injustices delivered by wealthy politicians on ordinary people and their lives. At first glance our campaign name: Disabled People Against Cuts seems fairly straight forward – just like that famous label on the tin – but the cofounders of DPAC have a deep distrust of labels and believe it is dangerous to simply take things at face value. I thought it might be interesting to take the lid off DPAC and explore the possible meanings that can be attached to our name. The reason I’m engaging in this exercise isn’t because I’m bored with nothing better to do; it is because I want to challenge some of the approaches that have been adopted in recent months in relation to the impact of the cuts on disabled people. For me disability is a political question; it isn’t simply about a collection of individuals who just happen to have significant impairments. There is no agreement within society as to what “disability” is and subsequently who it affects. There are dominant set of ideologies and practices which Mike Oliver has presented as ‘the individual model of disability’ and there is a radical alternative known as ‘the social model’ which has come through the Disabled People’s Movement. (1) It is also important to state that there are a host of hybrids which employ aspects of both models as well. (2) I work largely from within the social model of disability and it is from this perspective I’ll be exploring the current approaches on display. My starting point is the crucial question: who and what are disabled people? Who and what are disabled people? In my opinion exploring this question is one of the hardest tasks to undertake because there are so many factors which need to be taken into consideration. Within ‘the individual model of disability’ the presence of ‘disability’ is viewed as a ‘personal tragedy’ or misfortune – it is therefore socially constructed in negative terms. To be classed as “disabled” is to be 5
seen as ‘abnormal’ or a ‘burden’ on the rest of society, and as a consequence, a ‘lesser’ person. Many people seek to avoid being ‘written off’ in this way or simply can’t see themselves within the stereotyped imagery which stems from this articulation of disability and therefore they ‘reject’ the label of being “disabled”. Stereotyped imagery plays a major role in how society views who is and who is not ‘a disabled person’. Pearsall says that a stereotype is: … a ‘widely held but fixed and oversimplified idea or image of a particular type of person or thing.’ (3) What this means is that there are countless numbers of people who might be regarded by others as being ‘disabled’, but refuse to see themselves as such and others who believe they are ‘disabled’ but nevertheless fail to measure up to the appraisals which define people with impairments as ‘disabled’. I think it’s important to recognise that whilst an individual might reject the ownership of ‘dissbled’ as an oppressive label, it doesn’t mean that the State nor the rest of society isn’t prepared to use this label in relation to them. Sometimes this will be used to include them in the notion of “the disabled” (sic) whereas at other times it will be to deny them the use of the label if they decide that they haven’t matched the expected contours of qualification. This happens a great deal within the field of benefits and social care services. Again, I believe many fail to appreciate the significance of language in the social construction of sterotyped imagery. Let’s take that label: ‘the disabled’ – this is often criticised because it is said to be dehumanising and denies the dversity among ‘disabled people’, unfortunately, this criticism underplays the politically oppressive nature of this label. Within dominant culture ‘the disabled’ are not a social group bound by a defined identity, but rather as a ‘collection of individuals defined by their perceived abnormality’. Thus ‘the disabled’ become a pathologised “Other” – where the public gaze sets them apart from the rest of society – this is how it acts as a form of objectification. Before looking at an alternative perspective in detail I want to say that the dominant individual model of disability shares one common feature with the social model of disability. Both models state that ‘disabled people’ are people with impairments but equally hold the view that not all people with impairments are ‘disabled people’. Just as the State and society makes assumptions about who is and who isn’t a disabled person – I believe sections of the Disabled People’s Movement are guilty of doing a similar thing. Through our gaze we have tended to conflate into one ‘identity’ people 6
with impairments who fall into the dominant definition of ‘disabled people’ and those who embrace the political identity of being a Disabled people. The difference between label and identity is often problematic for disabled people. I want to acknowledge that there are other people with impairments who accept the dominant views associated with ‘disability’ and see themselves as ‘people with disabilities’ – however this doesn’t always mean they’re prepared to put up with inequality or discrimination. I would however suggest that it does influence how they address the causes of their experience of inequality and discrimination. Too often it is assumed that by having an impairment or the label ‘disabled’ thrust upon you, you become part of a specific community with a distinct culture – this is far from the case. It is still possible to have an impaired body but view the world from an “able” (sic) perspective. Many people with impairments have never had an opportunity to see themselves as anything other than through the dominant perspectives and others reject the alternative perspectives for a variety of reasons which are too numerous to discuss here. The ‘disabled’ identity How should we view our ‘disabled’ identity? I believe this example taken from the experience of mental illness is a common feature in our lives: Most of us don’t mind having a social identity based on our professional roles. In fact the more successful we are in our chosen field, the more of an ego boost we may derive from the same. But what in the case of an illness or a health condition when we are given a label, such that it becomes our identity? (4) Individuals can have a multitude of identities depending upon their relationships within specific social environments, however, for many disabled people their ‘identities’ can be denied, lost and distorted as a result of how they experience their lives as ‘disabled’ people. In many cases it is true that the labels that are imposed upon us can become our identities as the above quotation suggests. In my opinion it is also the case that for many disabled people we have a dual disability identity – on the one hand we have the imposed identity that comes through the legal definitions and cultural representations found with the society, and on the other, the identity that many of us try to construct through living our lives in opposition to the oppression we encounter. In other words politically and socially aware disabled people have been self-defining what it means to be a disabled person. Thus majority within the Disabled People’s Movement have come to 7
reject the imposed identity in favour of a socio-political one. Using the social model of disability Mike Oliver argued: For me disabled people are defined in terms of three criteria; (i) they have an impairment; (ii) they experience oppression as a consequence; and (iii) they identify themselves as a disabled person. (5) Our ‘disabled’ identity stems from understanding that as people with impairments we experience oppressive social relationships created by the nature of the society in which we live. What does ‘the nature of the society’ mean? Oliver drew upon the ideas expressed by the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation who suggested that disability was: The disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes little or no account of people who have impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities. (6) I have argued elsewhere that this does not provide us with a full picture of the processes involved. In my opinion often our ability to participate is simply down to agencies taking ‘little or no account of people who have impairments’ and thus excluding us; however, I would also argue that it is more a case of how they “account for people who have impairments” which ultimately leads to us ‘not being taken into account’ in the final analysis. (7) The focus on people with impairments’ loss of ‘functional ability’, their “Other” status and the creation of sterotypes have all contributed to the view that disabled people can’t live ‘normal worthwhile lives’. (8) The reverse side of this is that the nature of society is determined by social relations forged largely by people without impairments who were expected to conform to specific social roles – especially in terms of production and reproduction. The structures, systems, culture and social environment therefore serviced or expolited “normal people” (sic) at the expense of those who were significantly impaired. Thus disablism is the oppressive social relations which exclude people with impairments from or marginalise them within mainstream social activities. This then is the argument which lies at the social model of disability, however, I believe not enough attention has been paid to how disablism manifests itself at both macro and micro levels of society. In other words how people with impairments are disabled by society isn’t as understood to the extent it should be and as a result many disabled and non-disabled people prioritise addressing the disabling barriers that 8
exist at the micro level rather than challenging the nature of disablism itself which is maintained at the macro level. Within the Disabled People’s Movement over the years there has been a watering down of the ideas expressed by likes of UPIAS, Finkelstein and Oliver to the extent that ‘disabism’ is simply reduced to the experience of discriminatory attitudes and practices found within society; lost has been our ability to question the actual fabric of society itself and the implications this has for disabled people. I would argue the majority of disabled people don’t talk in terms of the experience of social oppression anymore (I difficult concept for many, I know) but rather the lack of access to ‘the world of the able-bodied’ (sic). The weakening of the argument has also led to a distortion of way the social model of disability is applied. Birmingham City Council for example claim to operate within the social model, yet their current policies and practices are totally oppressive. The tools that were fashioned to assist disabled people to fight against their oppression and for their liberation have grown rusty from neglect and misuse – a new generation of disabled people exist who believe the old ways and ideas have had their day. I fear this is kind of dismissive thinking is likely to lead to disabled people being stranded like a beached whale on some distant shore and as a result the horrid stereotypes of being “helpless” and “vulnerable” will return to bite us on the collective bum. Disabled people under attack The needs of western capitalism are changing and this in turn impacts upon all social relations within society. Not only that; the changing relationship between State and society require an alteration of the positioning of the majority of disabled people within society. The externally imposed identity of being seen as ‘disabled’ is being re-moulded through language, definitions and practice. It is for this reason I believe greater attention needs to be paid to the socio-political identity of being ‘disabled people’. This identity is a form of self-determination; it is about accepting not simply the fact that as individual you have an impairment, but that this has to be understood in terms of your social relations both with other disabled people and a wider disablist society. It requires one to embrace a political social group identity which goes beyond the realities of being an impaired person. How then should we view this identity? I believe Oliver makes a crucial point when he states: Using the generic term does not mean that I do not recognise differences in experience within the group but that in exploring this we should start from the ways oppression differentially impacts on 9
different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments. (9) There has been a tendency to buy into an individualistic approach to understanding the experience of disability – the notion of a hierarchy of impairment or disability is quite strong among some groups of people for example. Instead of addressing the nature of the social relations specific groups of people with impairments have within society; the impact these relations upon their lives, too often we simply judge the outcomes and then proclaim some people with impairments are more ‘disabled’ or more ‘deserving’ than others. This divides us and prevents us from developing strategies to change the nature of society and people with impairments’ social relationships within it. In my opinion the contours around who is and who is not regarded to be a ‘disabled person’ are changing as the Government attempts to dismantle the Welfare State. I say, “regarded”, because I’m talking here about the imposed identity and the implications this has for us. I don’t trust for one moment the facts and figures that come from the Department of Works and Pensions, although I do accept that people with significant impairments are at least twice as likely as non-disabled people to be unemployed. Nevertheless, I would argue that it is very difficult to appraise the real percentage of disabled people who are unemployed or in receipt of some form of welfare benefit. Within the field of social policy and reports from the mass media there’s almost a “common sense” understanding that ‘disabled people are dependent creatures who are unemployed and on benefits’. These ‘set views’ were manipulated first by New Labour and more recently by the Coalition Government. As democraticdeficit point out: There are several ongoing strands to the coalition’s current ‘crackdown’ on what the right-wing press calls ‘workshy scroungers’. (10) As early as 1992 we witnessed a Tory Government target people with mental ill-health within the benefit system. Today the attack is via the Heathcare Disability Assessment systems which link Atos Origin with UnumProvident (UK). It should be noted that: Professor Aylward was instrumental in how Labour’s Welfare Reform Act was to be implemented by the DWP. Who?
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… the former Chief Medical Advisor to the UK government, Professor Mansel Aylward, was instrumental in advising the UK government to set up these medical assessment centres based on the model in America, and he is still funded by the same American company used in his example, with his research centre in Wales funded by Unum Provident (UK). (11) In my opinion this attack isn’t just about reducing the welfare bill, it is also about making “disabled people disappear” and no longer a concern for the State. Clearly, they cannot make disabled people disappear in reality, but the Government can and is re-defining who fits within the labels that are being thrust upon us. On the one hand we have an ever decreasing number of disabled people who are being presented as “dependent”, “deserving” or “vulnerable”, yet on the other, a growing number of disabled people are finding out they aren’t really “disabled” after all! Suddenly, the inability to walk isn’t a “disability” any longer where a wheelchair provides mobility. This shift isn’t just about moving disabled people off benefits as I’ve already stated, it is about reducing disabled people reliance on a whole raft of welfare services including social care. I would argue that historically, individual disabled people have found themselves in situations where the imposed identity of ‘disabled’ is taken from them. People with impairments can, therefore, slip in and out of being considered ‘disabled people’ by the assessments and rules that are applied – their ability to obtain support it whipped away over night. I am therefore concerned with the focus of much of debate around welfare reform and benefits because to my way of thinking it is only addressing part of the Government’s agenda. I believe the debates around reforming the Welfare State and changes to the benefit system need to be situated within wider debates about disabled people’s ability to engage within mainstream society. Many people talk about a return to Victorian times, but inadequately discuss how charities and institutions were employed to remove disabled people from the public gaze. Against cuts Over the past year I’ve grown alarmed at how easily some disabled people have been prepared to play “the cripple card” and plead a special case for ‘the most vulnerable’. In playing this card they have lurched from talking about being denied rights one minute to being vulnerable and heartbroken the next. From my perspective these campaigners have offered a simplistic message via stereotyped images of disabled people and their lives. In doing so they have assisted in constructing the new contours that are being drawn 11
around disabled people in order to divide them. Much of the campaigning done by these individuals has lacked context and therefore it has pandered to the established norms associated with ‘creating “newsworthy” stories’. By taking “the crippled card” approach they have surrendered not only their own dignity and respect, but excluded disabled people who do not fit into their constructed imagery or “stories”. What has been largely absent is an analysis of the disabling nature of the cuts on disabled people’s lives. It is the policies of the Government, the withdrawl of services, higher costs, lack of job opportunities, etc. that are making disabled people “vulnerable” – it’s the situations we’re finding ourselves in not simply the fact we have significant impairments! I’ll make no apologies for repeating myself: Oliver said, ‘…we should start from the ways oppression differentially impacts on different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments’. I would suggest this process begins by having a clear understanding of why we are disabled people and the need to overthrow the imposed identity which helps to create our social oppression. I see myself as a disabled person because society excludes, marginalises and devalues people with impairments through unequal and differential treatment. From this position I recognise the need to challenge and change the nature of the society itself. Along with the other co-founders of DPAC I believe disabled people are currently disabled by systems, structures and services which either fail to meet or inadequately meet our needs, but the reduction in public expenditure at national and local levels, the removal of services, the destruction of jobs and communities will only result in greater hardship and social exclusion. We oppose all cuts because they impact upon disabled and non-disabled people’s ability to bring about a just and inclusive society. There are services run by local authorities which are not run in the best interests of communities – including disabled people – but simply taking an axe to them does not provide us with an opportunity to change the service or provide a better one. The cuts will take us away from and not towards building a more inclusive society; cuts will reduce our ability to expose the disabling nature of the society in which we live. Cuts right across the board will hamper ordinary people’s ability to take control over their lives and for some disabled people, though marginalised within the mainstream now, they will find the cuts bringing about their exclusion from all mainstream 12
social activities. For others the cuts will result in premature death caused by worry, increased poor health and inadequate support arrangements. Disabled People Against Cuts is about defending disabled people against the savage measures being inflicted by the Coalition Government, but we also recognise our campaigning has to be understood also within the context of disabled people taking control over their lives and determining who and what they are. By taking the lid of Disabled People Against Cuts I hope I have demonstrated that the struggle we’re engaged in has profound implications for the future lives of disabled people in the UK. Our campaign could never simply be about protecting the status quo – for that would be an act of betrayal. –Bob Williams-Findlay Footnotes (1) Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement, London, Macmillan (2) Finkelstein, V. (2002) “The Social Model Repossessed” Coalition (February) p.10-16. (3) Pearsall, J. (1998) ed. The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford, Oxford Press p.1823 (4) http://www.thrivingmind.org/diagnosis-labels-and-identity-crisis/ (5) Oliver, M. (1999) Capitalism, disability and ideology: A materialist critique of the Normalization principle p.2 (6) Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (1974) Fundamental Principles of Disability, London, UPIAS (7) Findlay, B. (1994) ‘Quality and Equality in Education: The Denial of Disability Culture’. In P. Ribbins & E. Burridge (eds), Improving Education, London, Cassell Publishers. 126 – 140 (8) Leonard, P. (1984) Personality and Ideology: Towards a Materialist Understanding of the Individual, London, Macmillan (9) Oliver, M. (1999) Capitalism, disability and ideology: A materialist critique of the Normalization principle p.2 (10) http://www.democraticdeficit.com/ atos_origin_cracking_down_on_workshy_scroungers.html#step99
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(11) http://www.democraticdeficit.com/ atos_origin_cracking_down_on_workshy_scroungers.html#step99
Speech by Sean McGovern at TUC 26th March Hyde Park rally “HELLO WEMBLEY!!! WHOOPS – SORRY WRONG GIG! Hello Comrades, I’m Sean McGovern, a disabled trade union activist; and, I’m honoured to be here today part of this anti-cuts movement. Which is growing daily! Comrades, disabled people are fighting for the most basic of human rights. • The right to work; • the right to a living income for those who can’t work; • the right to sustenance; • the right to decent care support; • the right to live without hate crime; and • the right to dignity! May I congratulate some of our popular media? Well done the Daily Heil, the Sun and Express, you purveyors of disablist propaganda. Along with the rubbish-end of TV and attention seeking politicians you’ve managed to demonise disabled people. In times of recession and economic downturn governments and their media hounds need a scapegoat; history has shown us this; today it’s the turn of disabled people – who’s next? No wonder hate crime against disabled people is on the rise. While the bankers caused this economic crisis disabled people’s support and benefits are being blamed. So much so that we are feeling the brunt of the ConDem ideological cuts. They say these cuts aren’t ideological – liars!
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• Replacing Disability Living Allowance with a Personal Independence Payment, with predicted savings of 20% – naked ideology! • Introducing a draconian set of Work Capability Assessments – viciously ideological! • Migrating disabled people from Incapacity Benefit to poverty level JobSeekers Allowance – driven by ideology! • Removing hundreds of items from Access to Work; a scheme that earns 20% for every pound spent! – stupid ideology! • Supported employment schemes such as Remploy under threat; thus adding to an ever-increasing unemployment queue and benefits bill – misguided ideology! Not content with attacking our jobs and benefits they’re bent on depriving us of life enhancing resources. And calling it the BIG SOCIETY! Day centres are closing. Council care is being cut. Direct Payments bills slashed as eligibility criteria are squeezed to critical only. Comrades, every day disabled people are dying due to ConDem ideologically driven policies. They must go! Today the struggle shifts up a gear! From here we must return to our cities, towns and villages to organise everyone against this ConDem regime; these enemies of disabled people, these enemies of the people – our class!!”
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26 March TUC rally- disabled people’s feedback Source: http://www.dpac.uk.net/2011/04/26march-tuc-rally-disabled-peoples-feedback/
According to John Pring’s report on the TUC 26 March rally, many disabled people were there ‘ to protest against cuts to disability benefits and other aspects of the government’s welfare reforms, while others were angry about the impact on inclusive education, and cuts to local services and support. Peter Purton, the TUC’s disability policy officer, said disabled people were the “worst affected” by the cuts, including disability benefit reforms, the loss of public sector jobs, and cuts to legal aid. He said he was “delighted” that so many disability groups had taken part in the protest. The Labour MP Dame Anne Begg said she had taken part in the protest to show “solidarity” and that “there is an alternative and we know that the priorities of this government are wrong”. She said: “It seems to me that those who have least seem to be losing the most and that is simply not fair. Disabled people in particular feel very strongly because they seem to be in the forefront of many of the cuts.” Criticisms were made of the TUC’s access arrangements, with some complaining that they had had to fight through crowds to reach the allocated “safe space” for disabled people near the front of the march. The TUC had also said that the disabled people at the front would be able to set their own pace, but they were soon swamped and separated from each other by thousands of marchers who overtook them soon after the march began. A TUC spokeswoman said it had made “extensive efforts” to make the event as accessible as possible, but was now carrying out an assessment of the access arrangements. She said: “We would not pretend that everything was perfect or could not be improved, but we are pretty sure that this was the most accessible demonstration of its size ever organised in London.” 16
She added: “Some reported issues were simply due to the greater than expected numbers.” That might be true but we hope that this assessment means that they will be improved in the future. We are not convinced that the stewards were briefed enough to afford the right access to disabled people. Hopefully they will give more training to stewards in the future especially if they want disabled people to continue being able to take part in marches of this kind. There was some disappointment that the Labour leader Ed Miliband failed to mention disabled people in his speech in Hyde Park, even though he mentioned maternity services, Sure Start centres, small business owners, teachers, students, “families struggling to get by”, libraries, Citizens Advice Bureaux, community centres and the NHS. His spokeswoman said later that other groups had also not been mentioned, and that Miliband had raised the government’s plans to remove the mobility component of disability living allowance from people in residential care at that week’s prime minister’s questions. She said: “It is an issue he cares about and it is an issue the Labour Party cares about. He is actually aware of the deep concerns and anxieties that disabled people have about the effect of the cuts.” As disabled people who bears the deepest impact of the cuts on our individual and collective lives we should hope he is more than ‘actually aware’ and that it is not mere ‘deep concerns and anxieties’ but actually feeling the effect of the cuts and drawing blood – that those cuts have taken the toll of a few lives already. The report also mentioned DPAC’s online protest (which received more than a quarter of a million views) for those unable to attend the march or rally saw an estimated 200 people email messages of support, which were “pinned” to an online map of the UK. —Eleanor Lisney “It is an issue he cares about and it is an issue the Labour Party cares about. He is actually aware of the deep concerns and anxieties that disabled people have about the effect of the cuts.” Then why is he supporting the cuts to DLA? Why did the party scrap IB and replace it with ESA?
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I’m sure he is aware of how anxious disabled people are. “Being aware” and “giving a crap” are two entirely different things.
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What unites and what divides us? At one time within the Disabled People’s Movement there was the belief that disabled people ought not to “wash their dirty linen in public” and to always show unity at all times just in case those that oppress us attempt to use the divisions against us. This was utterly unhealthy and helped to restrict the voice of minority opinion. Personally, I have no problem with acknowledging that disabled people, just as with our non-disabled counter parts, come from a variety of social and political backgrounds and as a result don’t always share the same opinions on issues affecting disabled people. There are political differences among disabled people and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so. Often these differences influence our take on mainstream politics, but they also impact upon people’s views on disability politics too. The debates around the social model, inclusion and the rightto-die, for example, reveal differing ‘world-views’ and I would argue the current struggle against the cuts is now throwing up alternative political perspectives as well. Over recent weeks there has been much discussion in some quarters as to Disabled People Against Cuts’ (DPAC’s) decision to withdraw support for The Hardest Hit campaign. Here I want to discuss some of the differences that have emerged since we took the stance we have. Before anyone else says it for me, I recognise the irony behind the fact that a campaign group called Disabled People Against Cuts has turned it back upon a campaign that has a focus on disabled people and the cuts – however things aren’t always as simple as they seem. How did DPAC become involved in The Hardest Hit campaign in the first place? The Hardest Hit campaign The United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC) finally took the decision to voice its opposition to the Government’s attack upon disabled people and DPAC had continued to urge UKDPC to come out make a stand. UKDPC took the initiative to invite the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) to work in partnership with them to establish a campaign. DPAC isn’t a Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO) and therefore had no expectations as to being invited to participate however when an invite to attend a meeting arrived, we accepted. Prior to the meeting the co-founders of DPAC discussed how we felt about working in partnership with DBC because it contains some of the major disability charities. The Disability Benefits Consortium involves many different types of organisations who have had differing types of relationships with disabled people and their organisations 19
and DPAC therefore wants to make it absolutely clear that there is no intention on our part to tar DBC all of its members with the same brush. We do assert however that the major disability charities have had historically very distinctive relationships – often socially oppressive – with disabled people and their organisations. In all honesty, we were concerned about working with the major disability charities because unlike Tom Shakespeare for example we do not believe these major charities have completely broken with their past practices or have acknowledged their role in disabled people’s social oppression. Many DPOs remain critical of how they behaved during the Rights Now campaign and believe some of them colluded with New Labour to marginalise and undermine the Disabled People’s Movement. The big question for DPAC was: could they be trusted? What we concluded was: An organisation should not be judged by its stated aims and objectives, the ‘PC’ language it employs or the friends it seeks to make alone; an organisation should be judged by its practice. In our opinion this can be applied equally to DPOs as it can be to major disability charities. Using this as our principled position we were prepared to consider the nature of The Hardest Hit campaign in terms of whether or not it would be a genuine partnership and we could only do this if we were round the table with them. During the meeting I attended I did state that DPAC wasn’t refusing to work with all disability charities but we did reserve the right not to work with any organisation that had been questioned again and again for abusing disabled people’s human rights; I didn’t directly name Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD). After the meeting a senior disability activist expressed the view that LCD was unlikely to be involved in The Hardest Hit campaign therefore there was no need to worry about them. It was only days after this meeting that DPAC learnt that UKDPC had agreed to work with LCD to organise the rally on the 11th of May. People may be asking themselves the question, does DPAC seriously believe LCD is any worse than the other disability charities and our answer is that this is exactly our opinion based on evidence obtained by us. In our opinion LCD continue to undermine disabled people’s rights and engage in oppressive activities. Given the dominant role being played within The Hardest Hit campaign by LCD, the co-founders of DPAC felt that it would be unprincipled of us to remain involved and in support of this campaign. We agreed to explain our 20
position, however, we would not seek to actively discourage disabled people from participating on the 11th of May. This said, I feel justified in also stating that the early promotion of The Hardest Hit campaign by a number of the Disability Benefits Consortium members failed to mention the partnership with UKDPC or include any DPOs. This website for example: http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/ contains the statement that: The Hardest Hit campaign, organised jointly by the Disability Benefits Consortium and the UK Disabled People’s Council, brings together individuals and organisations to send a clear message to the Government: stop these cuts. however around its edge there are no logos belonging to DPOs (as checked today 13th April) including the absence of UKDPC’s logo. Was this agreed with UKDPC? For a number of disability activists this brought a flashback to the Rights Now days. Having outlined the background, I now want to move on to examine some of the issues involved. Different perspectives: what are the issues? One criticism aimed at DPAC is that principles are all well and good, but with the situation being as terrible as it is, shouldn’t we cut the charities a bit of slack? I call this the principles versus pragmatism debate. What are principles and why do we have them? There are many definitions of what principles are and I believe DPAC employs “principles” as being: “a specific basis of conduct and management”. In our opinion it is vital to establish a framework for ourselves – are we prepared to work with people who are knowingly racist, disablist, sexist or homophobic? Do we ignore the fact that organisations might be viewing disabled people as ‘helpless cripples’ so long as they are prepared to come out and oppose the cuts? We believe it is precisely because we are facing severe attacks upon our rights and lives at this moment in time that there is even more reason than ever to ensure that the messages we’re sending out and the actions we take are clear and work in the long term best interest of all disabled people. I make no apology for saying that DPAC refuses to “turn a blind eye” and betray certain groups of disabled people for some mythical “greater good”. Some may accuse us of cutting off our noses to spite our 21
face or needlessly creating barriers where none exist, however, it is our view that it would be hypocritical of DPAC to speak of defending people’s rights, including the right to independent living and self-determination, if we gave a nod and a wink to anyone who is engaged in activity undermining these rights. How many Catholics are proud of their Church’s record on addressing child abuse? This leads onto a simple definition of pragmatism where it is seen as being: “a practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems”. Here I’m talking about a common sense understanding of pragmatism which implies ‘ends justify means’. It has been argued by some DPOs that major disability charities have resources, influence and power; areas where DPOs are lacking, so we need to be practical and hitch our wagon to their horses. Forgive me for pointing this out, but wagons don’t lead! What kind of “partnership” is this when the inequality between UKDPC and the major disability charities is so vast? ‘Ah, so you are anti-working with the charities?’ And again our answer remains, not necessarily. The Hardest Hit campaign, in our opinion, by applying a pragmatic approach to this ‘partnership’ has resulted in UKDPC allowing itself to be held as a hostage to fortune and this means disabled people are being asked to accept their historical role of going ‘cap-in-hand’ to the charities. The message coming from UKDPC and some others is that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ (sic). We could debate the reasons behind the inequalities between the ‘of’ and ‘for’ organisations but these are well documented elsewhere and our central concern here is to note the failure of UKDPC to provide political leadership for disabled people in order to mitigate against the unequal partnership they formed. This partnership or ‘united front’ reminds me of the bankrupt politics during the 1930s when sections of the Left surrendered their principles in order to form a ‘popular front’ based upon the lowest common features. This decision proved extremely costly and I hope UKDPC hasn’t made the same type of error. Throwing ‘principles’ out with the bathwater has led to a situation where UKDPC can argue: We fully understand the feelings expressed by DPOs and individuals towards some of the ‘for’ charities in this campaign, however, at a time when disabled people are facing harsh cuts and breaches of rights, we have to campaign with organisations whose policy and/or practice
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is not in keeping with the DPO philosophy. What exactly does this mean? Where are the boundaries drawn and by whom? UKDPC, mistakenly in my view, believe they have things covered when they state: The charities ‘for’ recognise that we are working from human rights framework, and that our agenda forindependent living is not negotiable. Within the context of The Hardest Hit campaign, what is there to negotiate? UKDPC are not going to influence how LCD operate; so this ‘recognition’ is utterly meaningless. However from a disability equality perspective, UKDPC claiming it works from a human rights framework but is prepared to ignore allegations of human rights abuse against one of its partners ‘beggars belief’ (sic). In our view this simplistic pragmatic approach discredits the Disabled People’s Movement. Another issue raised is that of allies and the justification of working towards a ‘common good’. UKDPC state: In common with other liberation movements, we are having to find a common way forward with those who are not immediately obvious allies DPAC know from our own experience that there has been a great deal of time and energy discussing our relationships with disabled and non-disabled organisations and much of this activity has centred upon how best to work with people outside our traditions. This requires an understanding of what an ally is. Over the last few weeks a few disabled people have asked DPAC to remember that: “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. It’s a saying DPAC is very familiar with and believe that both British and American governments have adopted this opportunist approach with disastrous consequences in Iraq and Libya for example. What actually determines who is a ‘friend’ or an ally. According to Webster’s, an ally is someone who is “joined with another for a common purpose.” It is reasonable therefore for both UKDPC and DBC to claim they are allies, but what are we supposed to understand by this term ‘common purpose’? In UKDPC’s statement they assert: We cannot turn organisations away from the Hardest Hit Alliance as long as they are prepared to fight the fightwith us and sign up to our leadership and mission of this 23
particular campaign. (emphasis added – BWF) Again, these are fine words but, why is it so hard to take them seriously? At no time have DPAC questioned the view that the big disability charities are opposed to cuts aimed at disabled people, but this is not the same as accepting that idea that these charities share the same agenda as the majority of DPOs. DPAC sees no evidence to suggest that DBC is taking its leadership from UKDPC; as I have already stated, this remains a concern and a criticism of UKDPC’s role. There is however clear evidence to show that some charities have priorities which place certain disabled people’s interests (and in doing so, their own interests) above those of other disabled people. In addition, there are times when the criticism levelled at the cuts or reforms by particular charities are couched in terms which accept at least in part the ideological agenda being forwarded by the Government. Call us cynical, but this again has echoes of the early 1990s and Rights Now, therefore we can’t help but question whether or not there is a possibility that some of the forces within the Hardest Hit alliance have their own hidden agendas. Are some charities using it as a bargaining ploy; we ask this because as things stand, along with the bankers, particular charities and third sector organisations could end up benefiting from the Government’s restructuring of the State. The Disabled People’s Movement has campaigned for many years to obtain independent living for disabled people and DPAC believes Government policy is undermining disabled people’s ability to achieve or maintain independent living. Against this backdrop we can’t help but note that LCD makes a vast amount of money from ‘social care’. This area of service provision is their biggest earner as shown by the increase in revenue (8%) for the 2009/2010 year. Elsewhere on our website DPAC has written about the proposed change from DLA to PIP and how this will impact right across sections of the disabled community. We oppose the Government removing the mobility element from disabled people in residential care, however we believe this move has been aided by oppressive and questionable practices within residential care management. We pour scorn on Cameron’s claim that, “we’re all in this together”, but how should we interpret the decision of disability charities such as LCD to create a specific campaign around the residential care mobility issue? Just looking after their clients best interests? For DPAC, being an ally should mean more than sharing a common purpose; disabled people are subjected to social oppression, therefore we want to work with people who want to further disabled people’s collective interests as well as their own. We would subscribe to this definition used by a 24
section of the LGBT community: “An ally is someone who works as an advocate for an oppressed population to which he or she may or may not belong.” Given the historical social relationships between disabled people and major disability charities, many disabled people remain distrustful of these charities motives and use of power. Rightly or wrongly, there is a body of opinion among disabled activists that holds the view that a leopard doesn’t change its spots by stealing another animal’s skin or by imitating its victims. If charities are changing and will work in true partnership with disabled people and their organisations, then it would be counter productive to stand in the way of progress. However as things currently stand the promised ‘cultural shift’ and changes in practice are hard to notice and in some cases are clearly ‘masks’ to hide the traditional roles charities play in disabled people’s lives. The Fight Goes On Disabled People Against Cuts only exists to protect the interests of disabled people against unjust and damaging policies and practices arising from the present and the previous government’s actions. As our own mission statement said: We welcome all to join us in fighting for justice and human rights for all disabled people. We attended the UKDPC meeting to see if members of DBC were serious in their commitment to ‘fighting for justice and human rights for all disabled people’ – we would’ve supported the Hardest Hit campaign if this commitment had been visible; instead, they have elected to work with an agent of disabled people’s social oppression and in so doing forced DPAC’s hand. From our perspective our non-involvement in the Hardest Hit campaign will be judged not by what we or others say about the decision we took, it will be judged by our ability to continue the fight against the cuts and to work tirelessly to assist in the creation of meaningful and principled alliances involving disabled and non-disabled people. DPAC took no pleasure or comfort in our withdrawal and we don’t consider ourselves to have staked a claim to the moral high ground. We took the decision did because each and every one of us believes it was the right thing to do in order to best further the interests of our community. http://www.lcdisability.org/?lid=16036 —-Bob Williams-Findlay
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Targeting Disability :: Monthly Review Source: http://monthlyreview.org/2005/04/01/targeting-disability
Marta Russell is an independent journalist and author who writes on the political, social, and economic aspects of disablement. She is the author of Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract (Common Courage Press, 1998). This essay is a much extended and more detailed version of a paper that first appeared on the Counterpunch website, www.counterpunch.org. In addition to old-age benefits, it is often forgotten that Social Security provides survivor and disability insurance protections as well. The privatization debate has overlooked the fate of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) as a part of the program’s family of benefits. I’ll wager that most Americans are unaware of the importance of SSDI, especially young workers who are the target of Bush’s campaign to divert funds into private stock market accounts. I, too, was unaware until the late 1980s, when I found myself unable to work with an eight-year-old child to support. I had worked to put myself through college and made a career in the film industry. Even though I was born with cerebral palsy it never occurred to me that someday I might not be able to continue to work due to complications from my impairment. According to the Social Security Administration three in ten Americans have a chance of becoming impaired before reaching age sixty-seven, able-bodied or not. I had been paying into SSDI, which today amounts to about one percentage point of the 6.2 percent total payroll tax deducted from one’s salary, and had worked sufficiently long so that when faced with a bodily breakdown I could apply for disability benefits. Disability is placed in the same framework established for the old-age program. Like retirement, SSDI is a wage earner social insurance. It is calculated based on wages earned over the number of years worked; it is not a personal investment account. If one becomes unable to engage in “substantial gainful activity” due to impairment, SSDI is there to furnish income in place of wages, as opposed to a 401(K), for instance. SSDI won’t be there in any meaningful form, however, if President Bush dupes the public into believing that Social Security is in “crisis,” it is about to become “bankrupt,” and the solution is an “ownership society” that promotes privatization—a proposal that could siphon a larger portion of 26
the payroll tax revenue out of the retirement fund into private investment accounts. The Bush administration could deliver a blow to theDisability Insurance Trust Fund (a separate account in the United States Treasury) just as it plans for the retirement fund. The President’s Committee to Strengthen Social Security report entitled “Strengthening Social Security and Creating Personal Wealth for All Americans” states that SSDI program outlays are projected to increase as a percent of payroll by 45 percent over the next fifteen years, and SSDI’s costs will exceed its tax revenue starting in 2009. In other words, the committee’s view is that the disability fund is in “crisis” as is the retirement fund. Despite Bush’s sales-pitch assurances that benefits will not be cut, a leaked private White House memo to conservative allies strongly argues that Social Security benefits paid to future retirees must be significantly reduced to make the plan work. The committee’s blueprint, in fact, cuts disability benefits along with retiree benefits to help pay for the cost of private accounts. The projected two trillion dollar shortfall over the first decade alone resulting from the carveouts from payroll tax revenue to pay for private accounts must either be paid for by cutting benefits or added onto the record deficit if current benefits continue to be paid. In Bush White House doublespeak, the committee’s report cautioned that the disability benefit reductions shouldn’t be viewed as a “recommendation,” but said “in the absence of fully developed proposals, the calculations carried out for the commission and included in this report assume that defined benefits will be changed in similar ways for the two programs.” If the disability insurance elements of the program were insulated from benefit cuts, then much larger cuts in retirement benefits would be necessary to achieve the same overall level of cost reductions —reductions which are necessary because of the loss of the trust funds’ revenue to the individual accounts. The sums are not insignificant. Already benefits to future retirees could be slashed by as much as 40 percent. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one Bush plan being tossed around to “save” Social Security —price indexing—would result in a 46 percent drop in Social Security benefits for the average worker who retired in 2075 as compared to current law.
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Currently retirement benefits are matched to changing wage levels but tying Social Security to an inflation index could significantly cut retirement benefits for all working Americans since inflation usually grows at a slower rate than money wages (that is, real wages tend to rise over time). SSDI is run like the retirement program, so it is likely that it too could be switched to an inflation index lowering the already meager disability benefits to levels one cannot survive on. In December 2004, for instance, the average disability benefit was a chintzy $894 per month (see the figure below for more on this theme).
There are more ways SSDI regulations could be manipulated to cut benefits and dismantle the system. The Bush administration could make eligibility rules more restrictive by changing the definition of “disabled” or make formula changes that reduce benefits. It could use Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs), which determine whether a disabled person can work, to purge disabled people from the rolls, increase the number of work credits required to qualify, and eliminate the annual cost of living adjustments. Already SSDI can be extremely difficult to obtain owing to denials and the need to appeal one’s claim. Too often lawyers must be hired to do battle with the Social Security Administration. The process is rife with undue stress and economic hardship. Some applicants are made to wait one to two years for a final determination. Bush’s “ownership society” does not apply to them. After these applicants lose their jobs and while they wait for SSDI, the former workers’ homes are often foreclosed on and they lose their cars and savings. 28
Many become homeless and live on the streets due to eligibility process flaws and delays. It is a degrading adversarial process. Some cannot deal with the fear of falling financially and commit suicide. All these chronically ill persons must wait two years to be covered by Medicare. As Linda Fullerton of the Social Security Disability Coalition explained in her Congressional testimony (September 30, 2004), “the current SSD process seems to be structured in a way to be as difficult as possible in order to suck the life out of applicants in hope that they give up or die in the process, so that Social Security doesn’t have to pay them their benefits.” It is well known that in 1981 President Reagan proposed cutting retirement benefits to shore up the retirement fund. Less known is that the Reaganites, hoping to save billions of dollars, arbitrarily sent tens of thousands of disabled people CDR notices that they were no longer “disabled,” and cut off their benefits entirely. This paper crackdown on eligibility (without due process) resulted in extreme hardship and in many instances death, sometimes by suicide, since the disability check was the only source of income for impaired people who could not work. The government has done nothing to compensate the victims of its deliberate negligence. It was as if the people whose benefits had been cut off had simply been deemed disposable. When Legal Aid attorneys sought an injunction against the head of the Social Security Administration, a judge in California stopped the Reagan savagery. In a double whammy to the SSDI program, according to the minority staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, President Bush’s committee also recommended that access to disability accounts prior to retirement age be barred. This means not only reduced Social Security benefits, but also no money from the accounts to cushion the loss. Such a change would defeat the purpose of SSDI entirely. The hard-right conservatives might say that the market, through private disability insurance, can pick up the pieces. But there is no private insurance plan that can compete with a social insurance program such as SSDI in covering disabled workers. For a twenty-seven-year-old worker with a spouse and two children, for instance, Social Security provides the equivalent of a $353,000 disability insurance policy. The vast majority of workers would be unable to obtain similar coverage through private markets. According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), in 1996, only 26 percent of private-sector employees had long-term disability coverage under employer-sponsored insurance plans. Work-related coverage has 29
been shrinking not expanding since then. It is not unheard of that after forty years of paying into private disability insurance the insurer refuses to recognize impairment as incapacitating and denies a claim. Last November, for instance, UnumProvident reached a tentative settlement with the insurance regulators of several states, which required UnumProvident and its subsidiaries to reconsider more than 200,000 longterm disability claims which had been terminated or denied from January 1, 1997, to the present. The regulators levied a $15 million fine and instructed the insurer to review its claim handling practices. Investigations focused on assertions that UnumProvident had improperly denied claims for benefits under individual and group long-term disability insurance policies. They concluded that UnumProvident had committed numerous violations of its obligation to fairly administer claims. How about the prospect that private investment accounts could replace lost SSDI benefits? In January 2001, after examining a number of privatization plans, the GAO concluded, “the income [from workers’ individual accounts] was not sufficient to compensate for the decline in the insurance benefits that disabled beneficiaries would receive.” This is in part because balances would accumulate over much shorter periods of time than retirement accounts and would, therefore, provide much less income in the event that a worker becomes disabled. Indeed it is illusory to believe that the majority of able-bodied or working disabled persons fit the profile of a worker with a lifetime of continuous work (and thus enough gains) to build “savings” accounts. Current labor market realities make staying employed a significant challenge, with workers being forced into many different jobs with long intervals of unemployment. At the end of 2004, 6,198,000 persons depended on SSDI. Disabled workers and their family members together comprise almost eight million on the program. The Disability Insurance Trust Fund was created with passage of the Social Security Amendments of 1956 in large measure due to efforts by organized labor—the AFL and CIO—to protect workers as capitalists used up workers’ bodies and cast them aside. Business, especially the insurance industry, was dead set against it. Today business is among the biggest supporters of privatization. The Business Roundtable (a group of blue-chip U.S. companies including Coca-Cola, Exxon Mobil, and IBM), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association, and the National Association 30
of Manufacturers all contend that individual accounts will stave off a payroll tax hike in the future, and they are anteing up millions of dollars to buy Bush’s revamping of the safety net. There are other class relationships involved. Going back to Marx’s theory of absolute impoverishment, Ernest Mandel clarified Marx’s observation that capitalism “throws out of the production process a section of the proletariat: unemployed, old people, disabled persons, the sick, etc.” Marx described these groups as part of the poorest stratum “bearing the stigmata of wage labor.” Mandel reminded us, “this analysis retains its full value, even under the ‘welfare’ capitalism of today.”1 Indeed SSDI is part solution and part problem for workers who can no longer work. American capitalism oppresses those who cannot work by shifting them onto a poverty-based social insurance program rather than allowing them a dignified stipend. Disablement generally equates with poverty so becoming a nonworker translates into a life of financial hardship, whether one has insurance or not, and generates a very realistic fear in workers of becoming disabled. Some social analysts describe the disability benefits system as a privilege, because it grants permission to be exempt from the work-based system. Conservatives used to describe the disability system as part of the moral economy. Neither privilege nor morality theories, however, adequately describe the function of the disability benefits system. This “privileged” or “moral” status does not grant disabled individuals any objective right to a decent standard of living. Retirees’ benefits are higher overall than those of disabled persons on SSDI. Disability benefits hover at what is determined an official poverty level. For fiscal year 2004, the federal poverty guideline for one is $9,310. The average monthly benefit that a disabled worker receives from SSDI is $894. Average monthly benefits for disabled women are $274 lower than men’s. Income is even less if one is disabled at the bottom of the social strata with no work history or not enough quarters of work to qualify for SSDI. This group of disabled persons must apply for the welfare (needs-based) disability program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), where the average federal benefit is $417.20 per month.2 The depth of poverty those on disability benefits face, however, cannot be accurately described without explaining that the current system of measuring poverty dates back to the 1960s. Government has never adjusted the equation to take into account the sharp rise in costs of housing, medical 31
care, and child care over the last four decades, which have dramatically altered the average household’s economic condition. The Urban Institute concluded that, in order to be comparable to the original threshold, the poverty level would have to be at least 50 percent higher than the current official standard. If basic needs were refigured to the modern market, almost a quarter of the American people would be deemed to be living in poverty.3 In my book, Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract, I attempted to show how public disability benefits fit into the machinations of production and wealth accumulation. At base, I wrote, the inadequate safety net is a product of the owning class’s fear of losing control of the means of production. The all-encompassing value placed on work is necessary to produce wealth. The American work ethic is a mechanism of social control that ensures capitalists a reliable work force for making profits. If workers were provided with a federal social safety net that adequately protected them through unemployment, sickness, impairment, and old age, then business would have less control over the work force because labor would gain a stronger position from which to negotiate their conditions of employment, such as fair wages, reasonable accommodations, and flexible work hours. American business retains its power over the working class through a fear of destitution that would be weakened if the safety net were to actually become safe. This, in turn, causes oppression for the less-valued nonworking disabled members of our society; those who do not provide a body to support profit making (for whatever reason) are relegated to extreme economic hardship. What other machinations are in play? The definition of disability is flexible, for one. The corporate state defines who is “disabled” and controls the labor supply by expanding or contracting the numbers of persons who qualify for disability benefits, often for political and economic reasons. A downturn in the business cycle is disastrous for workers because there are fewer jobs to be had. It is no surprise that a recession is accompanied by an increase in the numbers of persons applying for disability benefits. Furthermore, impaired workers are the last to be hired and the first to be fired at the slightest downturn of the economy. The conservatives’ plan to drain payroll tax revenue from the program through privatization is one way to make the little people pay for Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. It will also enrich Wall Street with a guaranteed influx of new clients buying stocks and bonds with their Social Security money— a substantial boon for financial corporations. But it is no less an effort to make workers less secure by undermining the social commitments made 32
with the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and the creation of Social Security Disability Insurance, already inadequate when it was instituted in 1956. Private accounts would undermine the guaranteed benefits that are the foundation of Social Security. The Bushites want it both ways: to super exploit the work force and create a you’re-on-your-own society that would deprive workers of the security and social compensation owed them. If the privatizers succeed, able-bodied and disabled workers will be made poorer. Under a privatized system, workers may only get out what they put in, unlike the current more progressive Social Security formula that provides guaranteed and proportionally higher benefits to lower earners. Investment accounts that rely upon a shifty stock market can rob workers of every penny saved. As of this writing there is no final Bush proposal on the table. To squelch criticism and cool dissent Bush has recently stated that he will not cut disability benefit checks. And perhaps he won’t directly go after SSDI, not now at least, because the first goal is to start the process of dismantling Social Security by convincing Americans they will be better off with private investment accounts. Building a groundswell for undermining SSDI has been a long-term endeavor, however. Reagan, for instance, aside from severing disabled persons from the rolls, tried to fold SSDI into a social service block grant to the states, which would have effectively eliminated the entitlement. In 1980, President Carter’s secretary of Health, Education and Welfare stated, “disability is killing us,” as the Carter administration succeeded in putting a cap on disability benefits and changing the way benefits were calculated to lower payments.4 Over the years, hard-right critics of SSDI have deemed it rife with fraud. Congresspersons have spoken of the dilemma of disability “dependency” and accused the program’s growth of being out of control. One reason that Republicans supported the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 was to provide protections against employment discrimination so that disabled persons would get off the dole and into jobs (this hasn’t worked but that is a topic for another time). The current Bush administration’s approach is likely to be indirect, by making changes to regulations. For instance, there is already a plan afloat to require that those on SSDI reapply every two years—an arduous task that some may not manage well resulting in their disqualification from the program. In addition, the success of social insurance depends upon the widest pooling of risk. If the privatizers succeed, as money is diverted into private accounts, there will be less in the common pool of funds that 33
comprise retirement and disability benefits. Disability payouts will then appear to be taking a larger piece of the pie, making the SSDI program an easy target for the hard right. Economics, however, is not the prime motive behind the push to privatize our public commonwealth. Bush has admitted that privatization will not make Social Security solvent. The reasons are political and ideological. The White House memo mentioned earlier stated, “For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win—and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.” Hard-right conservatives have been working since the New Deal’s inception to kill off Roosevelt’s vision—no matter that it has been a success story. In the early 1980s, free-market conservatives such as the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation began to hammer out the free-market manifestos that laid the groundwork for the current campaign. Now, the Bush administration is forcing us to defend the Social Security system that conservatives despise so much, rather than fighting to improve it. It is an all out assault. Newt Gingrich called one strategy “starve the beast”—drive up the deficit then use that as justification to cut the safety net. Privatization is the next step of a calculated, long-term campaign to end Social Security. We must do all we can to see this doesn’t happen to our children. Notes 1. # Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory, vol. 1 (London: Merlin Press, 1962), 51. 2. # For data on benefits see http://www.socialsecurity.gov/ OACT/FACTS/fs2004_12.html; http://www.socialsecurity.gov/cgibin/awards.cgi; and http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/ ssi_monthly/2004-12/ table1.html. 3. # Patricia Ruggles, Drawing the Line: Alternative Poverty Measures and their Implications for Public Policy (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1990). 4. # Edward D. Berkowitz, Disabled Policy: America’s Programs for the Handicapped (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 118, 121.
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