Britain’s attitude to disabled workers? ‘Suck it up, buttercup’

Here’s a question that Mel Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions, might like to answer – or one that an enterprising MP might like to ask him.

Secretary of state, have you given any thought to what some of Britain’s most disabled people will encounter if and when they hit the workplace, as you would like?

Stride is aiming to “help” at least some of those who currently qualify for Employment and Support Allowance back into work, billing this as a socially progressive move, rather than (ahem) a cynical attempt to cut the benefits bill.

If the results of a survey of its members by the Prospect union are anything to go by, this could get ugly. Because even if some of these people are willing and able to work, many workplaces are ill-suited to helping them with that.

When the union – which draws its 155,000-strong membership from across a range of professions, including engineers, scientists, managers and civil servants – asked about experiences at work, nearly one in five of the disabled respondents (17 per cent) said they had been treated unfairly. The figure for able-bodied participants was just 7 per cent. Disabled respondents were also twice as likely to report a culture of bullying and harassment (20 per cent, versus 10 per cent ).

A dismal state of affairs – but, as deputy general secretary Andrew Pakes said, this sadly represents “the everyday reality faced by disabled workers across a huge part of the economy”.

“Our survey underlines how wrong the government is to be forcing more and more disabled people back to work when they still face so many problems in the workplace,” he added.

Quite. And this is not just a problem in Prospect’s sector.

An earlier survey, this time by disability charity Scope, found that 28 per cent of disabled respondents who had fallen out of work had experienced discrimination, either from a line manager or colleague. Nine in ten of the disabled people on the receiving end said it led to or contributed to them leaving.

We’ve recently seen a spate of reports about what has popularly become known as “sicknote Britain”. The latest is from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), the professional body for HR people. Its “Health & Wellbeing at Work” study found UK employees were absent an average of 7.8 days over the past year, compared to the pre-pandemic rate of 5.8 days. Stress was a significant factor in both short and long-term absence, with three-quarters (76 per cent) of respondents reporting missing work becasue of it.

It is a statement of the bleedin’ obvious that if you’re already grappling with the challenges of disability, being abused by a boss or a line manager or a colleague, being put under attack or turned into a human stress ball for them to unload upon, causes a monumental amount of stress. It makes you ill. Of course it does.

Stride has talked about “the benefits from all the opportunities that work brings” if the “right support” is made available to enable more disabled people to access them.

But even if support is there, it isn’t a lot of good if the recipient is turned into a punch bag when HR, or the DWP, or their “job coach” isn’t looking and they are left fearful of just picking up the phone, let alone going into the office.

Sometimes, the bullying is not so much personal as it is institutional, the result of mind-blowingly stupid HR policies operating in both the public and the private sectors.

My immunocompromised wife once went into her workplace looking like an extra from this year’s horror hit, The Evil Dead Rise, despite my attempts to persuade her to stay put. The reason? By attending when she was ill and getting sent home, she would escape a sickness policy that would otherwise require her to attend mandatory HR interviews.

One of those (mercifully not involving her) resulted in the following exchange: “How do you plan to reduce your absences in the future?”

“Well, I’ll try really, really hard not to get cancer again.”

The elimination of inflexible and reductive policies like that would be a fine way of supporting disabled people who are able to work back into employment.

The CIPD makes a worthwhile contribution in calling for “a more systematic and preventative approach to workplace health” – but it needs a push from someone like Stride to push to make it happen.

There is also a clear need for more to be done to root out the shameful bullying of disabled people found by Prospect and Scope and, let’s be honest, countless others.

I’m with Stride in one respect: Britain’s disabled community does have huge potential. I regularly meet with and speak to people like me. We want to make a contribution. Many more of us are capable of doing that than are currently in work. Discrimination against disabled people commonly starts with the recruitment process. The economy would benefit handsomely from that changing.

But, as Scope’s head of policy Louise Rubin says: “Our labour market is rigged against disabled people. Businesses are letting talented people slip through their fingers by not supporting disabled employees. Poor attitudes, inflexible working practices, delays to the Access to Work scheme, and low sick pay rates all make it harder to stay and thrive in work. Disabled people shouldn’t have to put up with discriminatory attitudes at work in 2023.”

They shouldn’t. But they do and the trouble with the DWP’s approach is that it puts nearly all the burden of fixing these problems on the victims. So, disabled people like me. We’re being told, in effect, to “suck it up, buttercup” until we drop.

Mr Stride, it takes two to tango. And these figures show there is a lot less dancing going on than there is kicking, with the disabled partner on the receiving end.