I probably shouldn’t be blogging about this asshole, as I’m sure our labour minister, Ms Lisa Raitt would no doubt, find him, well, sexy. However, I’m sure what backward, assinine this British Tory backbencher is pushing will no doubt find its’ way here in Harperland and in the US, to make the tea-baggers ga ga giddy. Tory MP, Philip Davies, is actually proposing, to lower the legal minimum wage for disabled workers. He says, among other things, that the legal minimum wage for disabled workers may actually be a “hindrance” for them. Yeah, he really did say that! Yep, he proudly gabbed all about it in an interview on the BBC’s Radio 4, recently. Let’s tune into a few of his justifications, he spewed, shall we?
Firms were likely to favour other candidates and MPs should not “stand in the way” of those who wanted to work for less to get on the “jobs ladder”.
Oh, gee, that’s mighty swell of ya! You’re one helluva guy! I’m sure your disabled constituents will be sooo appreciative of ya! Yeesh! So now you’re the patron saint of disabled people?
Do the disabled really see it that way? Do they really want to work for less than minimum wage? Do they really want to work for slave wages, doing the same work as their able bodied/minded counterparts? Somehow I doubt it.
I gather that ol’ Phil hasn’t seen the commercial plaid on Canadian TVs in recent years? The one where they introduce a group of people with varying disabilities and their diverse careers with the message that we’re all able, asking all of us to open our minds, or something along those lines. It is that message that employers, as well as the rest of society need to see and hear; not this bull-shit about cheap labour, accepting less than the legal minimum wage.
Let’s tune in for more bull-shit, now.
The MP claimed the most vulnerable, including those with learning disabilities and mental health problems, were disadvantaged in their search for work because they had to compete with candidates without disabilities and could not offer to accept lower pay.
Oh man! Someone is definitely out to lunch! This is what they call Conservative compassion?? Pass! Cheap labour? Really?
They were desperate to work but continually found the “door was being closed in their face”.
He said he had talked to people with mental health problems during a visit to a surgery run by the charity Mind, and they had “accepted” that they would be passed over in favour of jobseekers without disabilities.
Yeah, and lowering the minimum wage is just going to make them feel that much more qualified and valued as employees, isn’t it? Employers are going to respect them that much more. Yeah, right, sure. I say, Bull-shit. It’s just going to reinforce an employer’s and society’s belief that the disabled are just helpless and hapless folks who can’t be productive or just don’t have the smarts to hold down a job and do it well, whatever it may be. Way to go, Papa Phil!!
Also, as this columnist points out, lowering the minimum wage would also give employers the message that it would be a green light that other labour standards could be broken where the disabled are concerned, as they would believe, quite rightly, that they may not fight back. They would not make adaptations to make their work environment suitable, enabling them get on with their job.
Oh, and Phil, we, in Canada have a true blue Conservative MP in our House of Commons. Steven Fletcher, the minister of state for Transport who happens to be a quadriplegic. Do you think he should be paid less than his able bodied counterparts because of his disability? Should he be paid less than minimum wage, perhaps?
What about physicist Stephen Hawking? Should he be paid less to teach? Should he get less royalities for his books? Stephen Hawking, being a British citizen, I wonder what he would have to say about Philip Davies’ latest foot in mouth disease?
You can read the rest of his twisted, patronizing interview here. Apparently, the rest of the British Cons are quickly detaching themselves from Papa Phil’s comments, saying that those are not the policy of their party. Of course they’re not, until, of course, they will be proposed.
Oh, yes, Ol’ Papa Philip also once said awhile back that pesky items like legislation to protect people from death and injury in the workplace is only “so much red tape”.