Last weekend, in the first blog in the series for Disability History Month we gave a brief overview of Disability History from the 1800s through to the 1940s and 1950s. In this second blog we restart our account of Disability History in the 1970s.
In the 1970s members of the Disabled Drivers Association campaigned for disabled people to have better support with mobility.
In 1973 the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation was formed to campaign for the removal of barriers to disabled people’s inclusion in society. This was the start of the campaign to get the Government and society to accept and use the social model of disability which focuses on the ways in which society is organised, and the social and institutional barriers which restrict disabled people's opportunities. The social model sees the person first and argues that the barriers they face, and not their impairments, are what cause them to be disabled.
The Artability Conference which was scheduled to take place in Manchester in September 1986 was cancelled due to pressure from disabled people because it was about ‘disabled people’ but was being held in a venue that was not accessible to disabled people. This experience led to the slogan ‘nothing about us without us’
The National Union of the Deaf (NUD) was founded in Wimbledon, London, on March 13th 1976 when deaf people assembled to form an organisation exclusively run by themselves. It aims were “To Restore the Rights of the Deaf”. The NUD was responsible for establishing sign language on television. As a result of their campaigning they were able to produce the first deaf programme - Signs of Life. This led quite directly to the programming of See Hear in 1981. The author cannot verify that the NUD has ceased to exist but is unable to identify any information to suggest otherwise.
The campaign which led to the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was a long, hard road which included a number of failed Anti-Discrimination Bills which started with the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, presented in Parliament in 1983 by Jack Ashley MP who was a deaf MP. Jack Ashley campaigned for the rights of all disabled people and was responsible for setting up the All Party Parliamentary Disability Group in 1968 and he remained as its Chair for 40 years.
The DDA was an important piece of legislation but, unfortunately it did not change people’s negative attitudes towards disabled people.
Deaf people have fought and campaigned for many years for BSL (British Sign Language) to be recognised as an official language in its own right and on 18th March 2003 it was recognised as an official minority language of the UK.
It took nearly 20 years before British Sign Language was recognised as a language of England, Wales and Scotland when the British Sign Language Act 2022 became law on 28th April 2022
From the research that I have undertaken it is clear that the Employment rights of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Workers are integrated with the employment rights of all disabled workers. Equally the history of deaf people and their campaigns for rights is fully entwined with the campaigns by disabled people to gain a whole range of rights which are taken for granted by non-disabled people such as accessible buildings; accessible transport; accessible housing; accessible workplaces and accessible toilets. A perfect example of this is the fact that the deaf MP, Jack Ashley, campaigned for the rights of all disabled people and not just for deaf people.
Accessibility to buildings for disabled people started to be addressed in 1956 when a newly qualified architect, Selwyn Goldsmith became disabled through polio, and he devoted the rest of his life to overcoming what he called 'architectural disability'. His 'Designing for the Disabled' (1963) was the first guidance for architects on disability access and it quickly became an indispensable teaching aid for architects and local authority planners.
It has not been possible to identify any legislation which is solely about deaf and hard of hearing workers. Having said that Jack Ashley as a member of the House of Lords introduced the Deafblind Persons Bill in February 2000 but this was not supported by the Government.
The legislation that Deaf and Hard of Hearing workers can rely on is the Equality Act 2010 which applies in England, Scotland and Wales. It places a duty on employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for people who have hearing loss, so that they’re not put at a ‘substantial disadvantage’ in work, compared with people who are hearing.
Section 20 of the Equality Act places a duty on an employer to make reasonable adjustments.
Section 15 of the Equality Act also places a duty on employers to protect their employees from suffering discrimination arising from their disability.
With regard to both of the above duties an employer can only be held to account legally if they are aware of the individuals impairment, in this case a hearing impairment. If the employer can show that they did not know and could not be reasonably expected to know about the person’s disability or impairment then they cannot be held to account legally.
In addition to the Equality Act 2010 the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was ratified by the UK in 2009.
By ratifying and agreeing to follow the CRPD, the UK agreed to protect and promote the human rights of disabled people, including:
eliminating disability discrimination
enabling disabled people to live independently in the community
ensuring an inclusive education system
ensuring disabled people are protected from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse
When the UN reviewed the implementation of the CRPD in the UK in 2017 one of the criteria it measured success against was ‘removing barriers to ensure that disabled people can access decent work and equal pay’
Today the Campaign for Disability Equality continues and many of the demands from disabled people are detailed in the Disabled People’s Manifesto and one of the key demand is for the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into UK law. This is something that Labour was committed to, but they have now backtracked on that commitment.
You can view the full Disabled People’s Manifesto here https://www.disabledpeoplesmanifesto.com/manifesto
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