If a person is qualified and can do the job easily (with a little accommodation) there isn't a problem, but I have worked in a small team (on near minimum wage) forced to include people with Down's. Not only was the effective group reduced by including them...they were also very hard work. If they were known to earn less (with the difference made up from benefits) there would have been far less moaning. Two of them were very crafty at avoiding work, but it was easier to let them get away with it than to have a hard pressed member of staff chasing them up all the time.
Obviously I don't know the details about your friends job application but exams and experience are what gets you an interview or assessment. My husband does a lot of recruitment for his company and it often comes down to personality and how you would fit in with the team. If he has been discriminated against I hope he's got something concrete to prove it otherwise they could just say the other candidate was a better personality fit for their business. Outrageous that discrimination like this still goes on.
Here's a bright one; http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/17/woman-head-stuck-bottle-bank-southampton
"The woman, believed to be a student" That explains a lot She said: âI will never do that again." You don't say. And I bet she wasn't even the right colour for the hole she was in.
Mentioned this earlier. How on earth she managed to do that I don't know. Mind you , I remember reading that a uni student got her head stuck in a clothes horse and had to get the fire service out!
Just my twopennorth on the "disabled" debate: to suggest that disabled people should offer to work for less money is insulting. You might just as well say that everyone should offer to work for less so that more people can become wage slaves. Or why not work for nothing in order to boost your employer's profits? When I used to select people for jobs in the NHS there was a simple rule: if a person who was disabled was qualified for the job they had to have an interview. This is, I believe, laid down in the Equality Act 2010, which also says that an employer has to make reasonable allowances for a person's disabilities, and to do otherwise is against the law. To give someone a chance of getting a job isn't the same as actually giving them a job, obviously, but it is a huge bonus which prevents employers ignoring a huge pool of talented individuals. I can sympathise with Fran's situation, but this is a case of the employer not making enough provision for their disabled employees, by expecting the other staff to deal with them. There is every reason to integrate most disabled people fully into employment: it is a measure of a civilised society; in the long run it is better for the economy because more people are contributing to the GDP; and, most importantly, it gives disabled people a chance of a more fulfilling life.
Not their fault they have downs, also not their fault they wanted to work. It seems your work is at fault for not helping them out enough with their disabilities.
I thought that incapacity benefit is only paid to those incapable of doing ANY work. The government are proud of their stringent tests of assessing someone's ability to work.
Pretty sure you are not legally obliged to positively discriminate and interview disabled applicants. This is something public sector organisations do under the 'positive about disabled people scheme' . I'm not a fan of positive discrimination for any group and just think you should employ the best person available who can undertake the job on offer. Unfortunately this only works if the employer thinks the same and isn't discriminatory.
Incapacity benefit is for people that may be able to do little work or work sometime in the future. Which is basically bullshit in a lot of cases, it's just to stop people getting the much higher disabled benefit. I know a guy who is wheel chair bound and suffers from crohn's and lung disease. Yet he only gets incapacity even tho he will never get better.
This is spot on......as someone who is used to interviewing people for jobs I can honestly say that discrimination was never a factor when hiring. A few years before I retired I was interviewing for a senior accountancy position. We narrowed the candidates down to four from twenty interviews. We called the four back for final analysis over two days. Two were able bodied and two were disabled we narrowed this down to two. Both the disabled.....one was a graduate with honours, not too long out of uni the other was also a graduate but with 10 years experience. The latter was successful because of his experience. When we told the honours degree candidate of our decision he exploded and demanded we give him the position. Reasoning he said because he was more disabled and an honours student. Needless to say he did not get his wishes. Sadly there is this side to consider too when you get a candidate that expects you to employ them just because they are disabled, also perhaps hinting of discrimitory law suites if not successful. Luckily I had only the two occasions to deal with this. Equally was not prepared to be blackmailed as all that were hired were there on merit. It is important to not discriminate against anyone all are useful people and can contribute. They should not be subjected to pay restrictions just because of their disability. It should depend on their job skill just as it is for a every day person.
The way I understand it is that a disabled person will work for minimum wage (say £6.50) so they still work for the same money as anyone else.but only £2 of that comes from the employer with £4.50 coming from the state. It's sort of receiving benefits in the form of a salary.
exactly how I read it. subsidy for "positive" discrimination. seems to have been taken out of context by irrationally angry people just like the microsoft pay rise debacle. the thing that has me question that conclusion is how profoundly apologetic these people become afterwards as their jobs are threatened.
So basically businesses get a cheap employee, making it even worse. The goverment would spin it to make it sound like incapacity claiments are decreasing. Then businesses would be getting a worker for £2. So basically win win for both.
The article doesn't make it sound like that at all. But he added: "Now, there is a small… there is a group, and I know exactly who you mean, where actually as you say they're not worth the full wage and actually I'm going to go and think about that particular issue, whether there is something we can do nationally, and without distorting the whole thing, which actually if someone wants to work for £2 an hour, and it's working can we actually" Doesn't sound like he was on about topping up wages with benefits at all? How come he was forced to apoligies? If he had said about topping up wages with benefits then people wouldn't have complained so much.
well yes that's the thing to be angry about. paying to get people into the work force if they are less able to do the job than someone who remains unemployed is silly. obviously the idea of £2 is a gross oversimplification and there will be people capable of less and greater than 4/13 output. if you need a whole job done though you'd still need three and a quarter disabled people of the £2 category to do it.
