Ministers have signed a charter on behalf of the Civil Service committing to best practice for supporting civil servants diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Can’t just let a dying person go home and die in peace. Let’s extract every bit of capitalist value we can from them first.
It’s not a policy and it absolutely does not do that. It has no effect on whether people qualify for benefits or not. All it does is that employers who sign up to this charter vouch to not fire their employees for getting ill, and to be supportive in finding suitable working arrangements. It doesn’t prevent employees from leaving their jobs and it doesn’t diminish their chances of getting benefits.
Right now there’s a lot of talk about how disabled people should be made to find “some work that they can do” rather than getting benefits. This is now normalised and accepted by most of society. Got cancer/blind/paralysed/whatever? well no you can’t rest at home. There must be some work you can do and the DWP will refuse you disability benefits because there must be some work you can do.
Well this trades unions policy is the first step down that road for the terminally ill. At first it gives terminally ill people the right to work (and again, who on earth wants to spend their last months working?) but soon the government/DWP will start using it as an excuse to deny dying people benefits even if they want to die peacefully at home instead of at their desk. No excuse to stay off work while you’re dying, after all you can’t be fired and they have to find some work you can do! These other dying people are working, so can you! So what if you feel sick, exhausted or keep fainting? Your employer is legally obliged to modify your work so you can keep doing it!
And this already happens with the non-terminally ill. People have literally dropped down dead at their desks after being denied disability benefits and having to go back to work. If you think this won’t end up being used against terminally ill people, you have way more faith in this sick government than i do.
Right now there’s a lot of talk about how disabled people should be made to find “some work that they can do” rather than getting benefits. This is now normalised and accepted by most of society. Got cancer/blind/paralysed/whatever? well no you can’t rest at home. There must be some work you can do and the DWP will refuse you disability benefits because there must be some work you can do.
Well this trades unions policy is the first step down that road for the terminally ill. At first it gives terminally ill people the right to work (and again, who on earth wants to spend their last months working?) but soon the government/DWP will start using it as an excuse to deny dying people benefits even if they want to die peacefully at home instead of at their desk. No excuse to stay off work while you’re dying, after all you can’t be fired and they have to find some work you can do! These other dying people are working, so can you! So what if you feel sick, exhausted or keep fainting? Your employer is legally obliged to modify your work so you can keep doing it!
And this already happens with the non-terminally ill. People have literally dropped down dead at their desks after being denied disability benefits and having to go back to work. If you think this won’t end up being used against terminally ill people, you have way more faith in this sick government than i do.