During the election only Channel 4 and BBC paid any attention to disability issues. Not one party leader was available for an interview on disability issues. 1 in 5 in the UK has a disability: 16 million disabled adults and half of them don’t believe life for disabled people is going to improve after the election. If you can’t be trusted to look after the most vulnerable adults then who exactly can you be trusted to look after? Social care policy is always assumed to be about elderly people.
As a full-time trade union rep at the BBC, I was constantly reminded of the need for workplace designers to be more disability-aware. For instance, the taps in the New Broadcasting House kitchens were initially positioned too high for wheelchair users to access. This was a clear indication that the issue of workplace accessibility often stems from a lack of disability awareness. What said it all at the BBC was that protected characteristics were listed in a micro-aggressive order with disability last – I got them to switch the listing to alphabetical order: Age, Disability, Faith, Gender Reassignment, Marriage Civil Partnerships, Maternity Paternity, Race, Sex, Sexual Orientation. If you list disability last guess what gets the least consideration.
#DisabilityFirst #RubenReuter #C4
