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DISABLED PEOPLE AND EMPLOYMENT:
RECOVERING HISTORIES
AND CONTEMPORARY PRACTICES
PETER WHEELER BA (HONS)
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
WARWICKBUSINESSSCHOOL
OCTOBER 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DECLARATION
ABSTRACT
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION1
The place of experiential knowledge in disability research12
Sources of data18
Thesis outline18
The social model organisation21
New deal for disabled people22
CHAPTER 1: Understanding Disability and Approaches to Equality26
Models of disability27
The quantification of disability: reinforcing a medical model34
The first OPCS survey35
The second OPCS survey38
ICIDH-242
Equality for minority groups in organisations45
CHAPTER 2: Research Concepts and Analytical Framework50
Antonio Gramsci50
Ideology55
Common sense and good sense58
Hegemony62
Intellectuals65
Assimilation and integration68
Differentiating organisational ideologies74
CHAPTER 3: Research Methodology80
Methodological approach80
Accessing and using documentary data85
Ethnographic research89
Research interviews96
Disability and research interviews97
Researching disability99
Emancipatory disability research100
Accessing research organisations108
Gaining access to NDDP and SMO111
Generaliseability115
CHAPTER 4: An Historical Reflection on Disability (I)117
Claims for a historical continuity of oppression118
The politics of disability122 Disabled peoplevictims of medical discourse 127
The rise of a disability movement130
Disabled people and charities137
Henshaw’s Blind Asylum138
Thermega Ltd.: an ‘industrial experiment145
Summary150
CHAPTER 5: An Historical Reflection on Disability (II)153
Disability post-Second World War154
Sheltered and subsidised workshops160
The Disability Discrimination Act (1995)163
Impairment165
Substantial and long-term effect166
Normal day-to-day activities167
The DDA and the environment168
Summary170
CHAPTER 6: Assisting the Employment of Disabled People?173
Politics and not-for-profit (NFP) organisations174
NDDP: the provision of employment opportunities177
SMO: the provision of employment opportunities192
SMO: internal employment practices207
Summary211
Conclusion212
CHAPTER 7: Staff Recruitment and Training215
Recruitment practices in NDDP216
Recruitment practices in SMO218
Job-related training in NDDP221
Job-related training in SMO 222
NDDP: staff disability awareness training226
SMO: staff disability awareness training228
Summary232
CHAPTER 8: Overcoming Access Barriers 235
NDDP: defining and enabling access236
SMO: defining and enabling access240
Summary251
CHAPTER 9: Research Summary and Conclusions254
Is the social model of disability new?254
Organisational comparisons261
Implications of the research265
Policy implications268
Research limitations and future proposals271
CHAPTER 10: Conducting Research and Writing a Doctoral Thesis: 273
Reflections from a Disabled Perspective
Embarking on the research: working with supervisors273
Embarking on the research: finding a place to work275
Accessing buildings and information: non-medical helpers277
Accessing information: adaptive technologies279
Writing the thesis: computer-generated speech systems283
BIBLIOGRAPHY290
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are too many people who have helped in the course of this research to list them all here, consequently when naming organisations my thanks go to the individuals who made the work possible.
Hence I would wish to acknowledge the assistance given by staff at both ManchesterMetropolitanUniversity and the University of Warwick. Also, the many archivists from: the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; the National Film Archive; the Working Class movement library; the British Library Newspaper Archive; the RNIB research library; Henshaw's Society of the Blind; John Ryland's Library, and the House of Lords archive.
Anonymity dictates I cannot acknowledge individuals in both participatory organisations, NDDP and SMO and individual disabled people who both informed and criticised as the research developed.
There are two principal non medical helpers who have assisted from before the research commenced often without receiving payment: Sue Paraszczuck and Neil Terry. Sue had the unenviable task of trying to understand the purpose of the research to work as a sighted helper in archive and library searches. Neil acted as an internet and electronic journal searcher; I know both would agree the experience has been interesting and often extremely funny.
Dr Lynn Robson has edited the final version raising many issues which assisted in obtaining clarity of writing and making the work conform to the visual standards required for a Ph.D.
Whether due to bad luck, bad attitudes or a direct function of working with me, during the course of the research I have had 3 second supervisors, none of whom lasted more than a matter of months. Only my director of studies Dr. Ardha Danieli has had the fortitude to stay with the research to the end. It is the support, encouragement and criticism given by Ardha that has enabled me to complete the research. My only remaining prayer is that she has destroyed all my earlier writings.
Abstract.
This thesis argues that the claim that disability is capable of reduction to two polar opposite models of disability cannot be sustained. Drawing on historical data, it is shown that for over the past century organised groups of disabled people were proactive in affecting social change without recourse to medical intervention, fighting for economic emancipation. Hence claims that the social model of disability represents a new understanding are incorrect. It is shown that the dominant traditional intellectual understandings of disability were not reducible to simplistic oppositional medical/social models, but rather a more complex combination which acknowledged both components in the construction of disability. To test this understanding, a comparison was made between two contemporary organisations who have the mission of engaging disabled people in work, and might be expected to operate to the oppositional social/medical models.
Through an ethnographic study in an organisation run and controlled by disabled people and participatory observation in a government employment initiative for disabled people, it is shown through the organic understandings held by stakeholders in both organisations that mutually exclusive models could not be seen in everyday operations, and despite one organisation working explicitly to a social model of disability, they could not escape the reality of impairment when claiming that disability was singularly the result of disabling attitudes and social structures. Hence the social model organisation could not provide any better employment opportunities than one operating to traditional intellectual understandings.
Through considering my own impairment and the traditional prescriptive methodological texts which assume a non disabled researcher, a methodological contribution is made by challenging understandings held in both positivist and interpretive approaches. It is also argued, that emancipatory disability research by disregarding any consequences of impairment, fails to make the challenges necessary to provide a more inclusive model.
ABBREVIATIONS
DDADisability Discrimination Act
DRCDisability Rights Commission
ESWSEx-Services Welfare Society
ICIDHInternational Classification of Impairments, Disability and Handicap
ISRMInstitute of Sport and Recreation Management
MOLMinistry of Labour
NDDPNew Deal for Disabled People
NLBNational League of the Blind
OPCSOffice of Population Census and Statistics
PKTBACPrinting and Kindred Trades’ Blind Aid Committee
PNPPublicly Funded Not-for-Profit Organisations
RNIBRoyalNational Institute for the Blind
SMOSocial Model Organisation
UPIASUnion of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation
WHOWorld Health Organisation
1
Introduction
For the past one hundred and fifty years, the issue of how to engage disabled people in employment has been a concern for business and government in the United Kingdom (Henshaw's 1928; Humphries and Gordon 1992; Thermega 1927; TUC 1943b); disabled workers (Blind Advocate 1918; Mahew 1861; NLB 1899; TUC 1945), and government (HMSO 1951; NLB 1920; Tomlinson 1943; TUC 1941). Since the latter half of the twentieth century, successive governments have presided over an increase in the unemployed disabled population which, through initiatives including ‘New Deal for Disabled People’ (NDDP), the present government is currently attempting to reverse.
In the mid 1970s, a combination of the effects of war, politics and economic policy affected the employment of the disabled population in many Western industrialised countries (Bell 1993; Bowitz 1997; Catalano & Kennedy 1998; Riphahn 1997; Snower 1995). One event which had the secondary consequence of increasing the numbers of disabled people unable to find work was the decision by OPEC (the association of major oil producers) to quadruple the price of crude oil and reduce output (Turner 2001). These actions were taken due to the disenchantment of (primarily) Arab oil producers with the support given by many Western countries to Israel preceding and during the Arab/Israeli war of 1972 (Turner 2001, 311-13). The effect of the increased price and reduced supply of ‘crude’ was to plunge many Western economies into recession (Bell 1993; Powell 1995; Snower 1995). For many organisations, such a recession resulted in restructuring, downsizing or even closure (Powell 1995).
Unemployment is a politically ‘sensitive’ issue, which governments in the UK have historically attempted to manage and control (Toynbee &Walker 2001). One measure which served to hold down the headline unemployment figures was the encouragement given to workers to leave the Labour market by gaining access to the invalidity rather than unemployment benefit systems (Toynbee & Walker 2001).
This encouragement allied with Britain’s complex benefit system had financial implications for individuals, the organisations they worked for and for government (Snower 1995). For individuals, invalidity benefit (IVB) provided a higher level of income than unemployment benefit (Ward 1996) which, some have argued, conferred the perception of social stigma and lower status on its recipients (Argyle 1989). The relative benefits offered by the exit-route from the workforce to invalidity also served the interests of employers. Resistance to losing their jobs, particularly amongst older workers, could be reduced when workers were presented with a more acceptable exit strategy than unemployment benefit (Snower 1995). So, faced with job losses, many individuals accepted invalidity benefit as the most appropriate Labour market exit strategy (Disney & Webb 1991; Molho 1991). General practitioners were the gatekeepers to IVB and could use their discretion to determine whether a person with a health condition was likely to be able to return to their previous occupation. Factors including age, the skills the individual had and their ability to retrain in other occupations were all taken into account (Ward 1996).
The effect of such policies held down unemployment figures but inevitably increased government spending on disability benefits (Bell 1993; Major 1993; Snower 1995; Ward 1996). Claimants of IVB rose from 505,000 in 1977 to 1.77 million by 1995, costing the Treasury an increase in IVB benefit payments from £678 million in 1971/72 to £7.75 billion in 1994/95 (Ward 1996). This increase did not go unnoticed by government and Prime Minister John Major made the following comments in Parliament:
Frankly, it beggars belief that so many more people have suddenly become invalids, especially at a time when the health of the population has improved. I make no apologies for looking at this area of expenditure. (Major 1993)
Consequently, from the early to mid-1990s, government attempted to reduce the disabled population through redefinition, using stricter criteria to determine those who could claim to be incapable of work and by introducing anti-discrimination legislation, which should have had the effect of increasing employment opportunities and safeguarding against discrimination in the workplace. The response of the Major government was to alter the entry criteria for disability benefits for working-age people by prescribing a strict set of tests based on physical, sensory, and mental abilities, which applicants had to be unable to complete if they were to be defined as disabled (George1999; Ward 1996).
Invalidity benefit was replaced by incapacity benefit, with the changes enshrined in legislation under the 1994 Incapacity for Work Act (IWA). The IWA clearly linked the restrictions caused by impairment to the potential ability of the disabled person to perform any type of work, irrespective of age, previous work history, experience or skills (Benefits Agency 1996). The IWA does not allow consideration of any structural or environmental barriers in the assessment of an individual’s ability to perform any form of work. This changed with the introduction of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
The DDA offers legal redress against discrimination in many areas of social life including employment if such discrimination can be shown to be based on disability. The DDA defines disability in relation to severity of impairment; the impairment’s effect on day to day activities, and its longevity (Doyle 1996; Cooper Vernon 1996; Gooding 1996). However, by focusing on impairment and its consequences the DDA, like the IWA before it, emphasises the individual impaired body as the prime cause of disability.
The DDA has been criticized for its reliance on the measurements required to determine who is covered by the Act (Rights Now 1995; SCOPE 1995) and for the lawful discrimination that it allows against some disabled people with regard to employment (Barnes 1997). As Barnes argues, it is perfectly legal to discriminate if a person is not disabled enough to fall under the remit of the Act, or if the employment of the disabled person can be shown to damage business (Barnes 1997). However, it would be incorrect to claim that the DDA does not recognise that there is a social component to discrimination against the disabled. For example, employers are obliged to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to facilitate the employment of disabled staff, and in specific cases, such as facial disfigurement, it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of the attitudes of others towards the disabled person (Partridge 1996). So, although heavily influenced by medical measurements of impairment and its consequences, some environmental barriers and social attitudes are also acknowledged as disabling factors by the legislation.
Whilst offering protection against discrimination for some disabled people, the DDA also had an effect on employers who were required to introduce equal opportunities policies which protected disabled people, thus augmenting existing policies relating to race and gender discrimination (Bourne Whitmore 1996; Cooper Vernon 1996; Doyle 1996b; Gooding 1996; Northern Officers Group 1996; Woodhams 2000). However, despite these legislative interventions, a financially state-dependent disabled population continued to increase with the latest statistics identifying2.7 million receiving incapacity benefit and showing that the combined cost of all disability benefits to this group reaching £19 billion annually (AccountAbility 2004). It was against this background of rising levels of disability that New Labour swept to power in 1997 and argued for the greater social inclusion of disabled people. This was to be achieved primarily by improving their opportunities to gain paid work in open employment (Brown 1999; Harman 1997; Mandelson Liddle 1996). Since this concept of social inclusion through paid work remains present government policy it is important to consider its underlying ideology and how this has influenced the mechanisms that are currently in place to assist disabled people to break away from state-dependency and achieve social inclusion through paid work.
The electoral success of ‘New Labour’ has been attributed to the party’s rejection of many traditional outmoded ‘Old Labour’ ideologies. These include a move away from central government control of the economy (Coote 2001); an ideological shift away from a commitment towards public ownership (Giddens 1998), and a weakening of the once close links to the trade union movement (Driver Martell 2000). This ideological shift, often referred to by New Labour as ‘modernization’ has been criticised by some as a move away from collectivism towards individualism (Lavalette Pratt 1998: 246). This move towards individualism, however, does not mean that the structural effects of policy are of no concern, since funding for many areas of social policy is dependent on projects being monitored to ensure the desired structural policy outcomes are achieved (Prideaux 2001). Many who support this modernization process argue that ‘New Labour’ has attempted to ‘strike a balance between economic success and “social inclusion”, the market and the community’ (Toynbee Walker 2001; Driver & Martell 2000).
Social inclusion is often thought to be synonymous with excluded citizens finding paid work (DSS 1998). The mechanisms chosen to deliver work opportunities were primarily filtered through training schemes and education (Hyland 2000a, 2000b; Hyland Merrill 2001) and, theoretically, improved training should increase opportunities to participate in open competition for jobs (Brown 1999; Harman 1997; Mandelson Liddle 1996). The aim of ‘New Labour’ was to forge a new relationship between social inclusion, citizenship and State. This move towards proactive citizenship was a pivotal concept in what has been termed ‘The Third Way’ (Giddens 1998). ‘The Third Way’ directly links the State to equality and social inclusion, arguing that ‘“the social investment state” defines equality as inclusion and inequality as exclusion’ (Giddens 1998: 102). Some have argued that scepticism towards the State’s ability to provide efficient solutions to social exclusion has also moved the focus away from state intervention towards partnerships (Popple Redmond 2000). Partnerships are considered by the New Labour Government to be the most efficient use of state and market resources to deliver social inclusion (Compact 1998) and these partnerships have primarily been made between public, private and the voluntary sector (Wickham Jones 2000).
It was against this background of individual responsibility and partnership that the government’s cornerstone project ‘The New Deal’ was launched to combat social exclusion (Carter Greco 2000; Foley Martin 2000; Miller 2000; Welch 1997). £5.2 billion was raised early in New Labour’s first term in office (HMT 1997) through a one-off windfall tax on the privatized utilities (Drake 2000). Money was allocated into a series of New Deal programmes, which aligned policy with Third Way principles.
In addition to New Deal for Disabled people (NDDP) other New Deal programmes included those for the young unemployed (Miller 2000; Ritchie 2000; White 2000); the long term unemployed (Layard 2000; Peck 1999), and lone parents (Hales 2000). Of the total financial commitment to the New Deal programmes, £195 million was earmarked for New Deal for Disabled People (Drake 2000) the ethos of which was outlined by Harriet Harmon, Minister for the Disabled at that time, who stated:
This announcement will give a significant boost to those disabled people who want to work. This government wants to give marginalized and excluded people a hand up not a hand out. (DSS 1998)