disability

Remploy workers strike against factory closures

Submitted by Django on Jul 21 2012 17:22

Workers at Remploy factories struck on Thursday over government plans to close factories.

The coalition government plans to shut down 36 of the 54 Remploy factories in the UK, potentially making 1,700 workers unemployed. The strike affected all Remploy sites

Constitution of the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation

This constitution is is not just a record of the procedural form of a radical organisation but also a powerful political statement about both disability and the organisation of society more generally. British disability theory and activism has many of its roots in this organisation, and its constitution, written in 1974, contains insight and analysis that is useful to this day.

AIMS

Beneficiary bashing targets the sick

Submitted by Anarchia on Jan 28 2012 00:37
Beneficiary bashing targets the sick

The new National government is set to attack beneficiaries with a complete overhaul of how the social welfare system operates in New Zealand.

While most beneficiaries will be worse off under the new rules, two types of benefit are likely to be hit especially hard – those on what is currently known as the Sickness Benefit, and those on the Domestic Purposes Benefit.

Man in coma loses benefits as he's classified "fit for work"

Submitted by Rob Ray on Jan 19 2012 17:26

The government's decision to crack down on the disabled took a bizarre turn this week after a man in a coma was stripped of his benefits - because he'd not handed his fitness-for-work questionnaire in.

In a thread on rightsnet.org.uk on Thursday Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit deputy manager Sam Harney noted:

Communism: The real movement to abolish disability

The following article is a tentative attempt to combine communist theory with the insights of disability activists and theorists in order to promote revolutionary approaches to understanding and overcoming the oppression of disabled people.

Communism: The real movement to abolish disability

Motler, Leonard Augustine, 1888-1967

Submitted by Battlescarred on Feb 2 2011 16:47

A short biography of Leonard Motler, English anarchist, deaf mute and activist against the First World War.

[i]“I went round to help Freedom at its Ossulston Street offices… Working there were two deaf-mutes, L.A.Motler and G.Scates, who were respectively editor and manager of Satire: a paper of social criticism, the only illustrated anarchist periodical in English to have appeared.

Creating a Movement: The Struggle for Inclusive Education in the UK, 1990–2006, by Stefan Sczcelkun

Tom Jennings appreciates this snapshot of a campaign against the segregation of disabled people.

Anti-Ability Apartheid. DVD review – Tom Jennings

Remploy workers to strike

Submitted by Mike Harman on Jan 29 2008 22:23
Peter Hain

Workers at 28 factories due to be closed by Remploy are being balloted for strike action.

Following a decision in November last year by the former secretary of state Peter Hain, Remploy will close 28 out of it's total network of 83 factories as part of a modernisation deal. The factory closures will result in the loss of 2,000 supported jobs for workers with disabilities. Two strike ballots have come back in favour of action, and a further six are being held with more to follow.

Protests continue at Gallaudet University

Submitted by Ramona on Oct 30 2006 14:00
Students have blockaded the University.

Deaf students continue to occupy Gallaudet University in Washington DC in protest against the incoming President.

Students at America's only liberal arts University for the deaf have continued their protests against the incoming President Jane Fernandes, who they say is not committed to the advancement of deaf culture.

Deaf students occupy in Washington DC

Submitted by Red Marriott on Oct 19 2006 14:18

Deaf students are demonstrating across North America in solidarity with students occupying Gallaudet University, Washington DC (the world's only deaf university).

Protests began 2 weeks ago, in response to a much disliked incoming president - students shut down the school by blocking all entrances for three days and occupying a university building. Then last Friday more than 130 deaf students were arrested when police stormed the occupation. Police stated that these were the biggest mass arrests in Washington D.C. since the 1960s.