Scottish Christians Launch Crusade for Disabled Workers

The Christian Peoples Alliance in Scotland is giving its support to a month-long "crusade" starting today in Aberdeen aimed at keeping open 43 factories which employ disabled staff.

Trade unions are organising marches and public meetings throughout Scotland, England and Wales and will call at each of the Remploy sites earmarked for closure.

Party Leader, Teresa Smith from Dumfries, who has a disabled daughter, said: "The huge numbers of closures and the impact it will have on disabled workers is appalling. Only half of disabled people are working, compared with more than four-fifths of non-disabled.

"Shutting the factories won't change that. These closures will do nothing to tackle discrimination in the jobs market and will lead to 2,500 jobs being lost."

In July a report by the Social Market Foundation and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) found that improving disabled people's skills to world-class levels by 2020 would boost the economy by £35bn over 30 years.

It also found that disabled people are half as likely as non-disabled people to have a degree and twice as likely to have no qualifications at all, with far fewer in work.

The Christian Peoples Alliance is backing the report's call for a national commitment to reducing the skills gap and to oblige employers to take more responsibility for employing and training disabled workers.

"As Christian Democrats, we want to see greater investment in disabled people's skills, which all the evidence says will both benefit the economy and deliver greater equality," said Mrs Smith. "While the Government fails to tackle workplace disability discrimination, this is not the time to be closing Remploy factories."