Disabled people, the reserve army of labour and welfare reform

Grover, Chris; Piggott, Linda

doi:10.1080/09687590500335683

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…While this was held as being of benefit to the individuals on disability benefits, there can be little doubt that it was part of Britain's macro-economic strategy to ensure that increasing employment rates did not increase wage inflation. Workless people, including disabled people, would have to become part of what the government described as the 'effective labour supply' (the reserve army of labour) that would keep wage inflation in check at a time when the demand for workers was increasing (Grover and Piggott 2005). Or, as the 2006 Green Paper announcing the ESA noted:…”

Section: Disability Benefits Disabled People and Neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There can be little doubt that over the past two decades changes to social security benefits for disabled people were seen as being good for economic stability because of the linkages in orthodox economic analysis between the supply of labour and wage rates. The argument in both the UK (Grover and Piggott 2005) and Australia (Argy 2005;Keating 2006) was that in order to increase the amount of employment there had to be downward pressure on wage levels. Increased competition for paid work by increasing the size of the reserve army of labour is one means of securing this (Peck 2001).…”

Section: Disability Benefits Disabled People and Neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neoliberal restructuring, disabled people and social (in)security in Australia and Britain

Grover

Soldatić

2013

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

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This paper examines recent social security policies in Australia and the UK for workless disabled people. The paper outlines developments in both countries over the past two decades and points to the fact that while there may be differences in the detail, the trends in such policies in the two countries are similar. This involves moves towards stricter eligibility criteria, greater expectation of workless disabled people to make efforts to (re)enter paid employment and, through such processes, a redrawing of the 'disability category' that denotes the 'truly' disabled from those who are deemed capable of doing at least some paid work. The paper goes on to consider explanations of such change, arguing that liberal explanations in the social administration tradition are problematic and that they, therefore, need to be placed within the neoliberal project, in particular its concern with putting people to work. The paper concludes that this has essentially involved a redrawing of the disability category to ensure a smaller number of people of working age in both countries can legitimately claim an existence outside of paid work. The paper also argues that more comparative research is required to understand the impacts of such trends on disabled people and provide insights for those resisting the influence of neoliberalism on welfare regimes.

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Section: Disability Benefits Disabled People and Neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Disability Benefits Disabled People and Neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neoliberal restructuring, disabled people and social (in)security in Australia and Britain

Grover

Soldatić

2013

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

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“…The belief in marketisation is resulting in a discourse that suggests that welfare states create unhealthy dependency and users of services, with the poor being cast as either "customers or scroungers" (Grover & Piggott, 2005). The recent crisis and subsequent financial support, along with stringent conditions, in southern European states, i.e.…”

Section: Creating and Managing Users Of Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

South African Child and Family Welfare Services: Changing Times or Business as Usual?

Strydom

Spolander

Engelbrecht

et al. 2017

SWORK

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“…We identify two notable and interrelated structural tendencies in this policy arena. First the re-commodification of welfare claimants' labour power, by orienting policy towards 'return to work' and away from longer-term mental health service provision, thereby subordinating the needs of relevant welfare recipients to the requirements of capital accumulation (Grover and Piggott, 2005). The contemporary labour markets with which people are being compelled to re-engage are, moreover, frequently toxic for mental health as a result of the second structural mechanism we will outline: the reconfiguration and intensification of work under neoliberalism.…”

Section: Mental Health Welfare and Work Under Neoliberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realising Sedgwick’s vision: theorising strategies of resistance to neoliberal mental health and welfare policy

Moth¹,

McKeown²

2016

Critical and Radical Social Work

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There has recently been a re-emergence of interest in non-reductive historical materialist modes for analysing social movements. A precursor of this is found in the work of mental health activist and Marxist theorist Peter Sedgwick. We contend that Sedgwick's work retains utility for theorising radical mental health movements in the twenty-first century, though we argue his framework needs extension in light of intervening debates regarding the interaction of material (distributive) and post-material (recognition) concerns. Having established this we will turn to an overview of recent neoliberal work, welfare and mental health policy reforms as a basis for consideration of strategic implications and challenges for resistance and coalition building amongst survivor and worker activists. We will propose a contemporary Sedgwickian strategy that identifies transitional organizing goals combining concrete material demands with imaginative, prefigurative means oriented towards ruptural change. In conclusion we argue that tools for promoting this strategy such as the Social Work Action Network's (SWAN) Mental Health Charter may assist in binding together diverse constituencies to strengthen alliances of resistance and deepen a politics of solidarity.

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Disabled people, the reserve army of labour and welfare reform

Cited by 37 publications

References 15 publications

Neoliberal restructuring, disabled people and social (in)security in Australia and Britain

Neoliberal restructuring, disabled people and social (in)security in Australia and Britain

South African Child and Family Welfare Services: Changing Times or Business as Usual?

Realising Sedgwick’s vision: theorising strategies of resistance to neoliberal mental health and welfare policy

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