Recommitting to Action Against Disability Cuts
- kevinndaws
- Jun 29
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 30
Conference, Chair, Comrades, Lee Elliott, I stand before you today because we are witnessing a coordinated, systemic attack on disabled workers - an attack that is being dressed up as "reform" but feels like a declaration of war on our class.
Last year, at the TUC Congress, unions stood united together. Motions 38 and 39 were passed unanimously. The entire trade union movement pledged coordinated and sustained action against disability cuts. The CWU was at the heart of that fight.
But today, there is a dangerous silence coming from Congress House.
The TUC leadership has suggested that because of minor concessions on PIP, the "emergency" has passed. They claim they no longer need to implement the actions we voted for.
Conference, they are wrong!
These concessions are a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. They are temporary, lasting only until the conclusion of the Timms Review. And let’s be clear: the promised "co-production" with disabled people is a sham. We aren’t being consulted; we are being managed.
While the TUC waits, our members are suffering. Cuts to Motability, the gutting of Access to Work, and the squeezing of the Universal Credit Health Element are not "policy adjustments" - they are life-altering emergencies.
And it’s not just the Department for Work and Pensions. Decades of austerity and the systematic underfunding of local councils have decimated social services, transport, and education. When a council can’t provide a bus or a carer, it is the disabled worker who is imprisoned in their own home.
Perhaps most sickening is the targeting of the next generation. Through the Milburn and Streeting reviews, we see a government obsessed with "over-diagnosis" and "work-readiness." They are threatening to abolish Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and forcing 55,000 young disabled people into compulsory placements under the shadow of sanctions.
This is not "support." This is state-sponsored bullying.
That is why this motion is vital. We are instructing our NEC to stop the TUC from dragging its feet. We are calling for:
1. A coordinated movement-wide campaign that exposes the cumulative impact of these cuts.
2. An accessible, static demonstration and a mass lobby of Parliament. We need to show them our faces and our strength.
3. A weekend demonstration against Labour’s austerity plans.** We must send a message to this government: You cannot balance the books on the backs of disabled workers.
4. And finally, we demand an **independent disability review** - one led democratically by disabled people and trade unions, not by Whitehall bureaucrats working for the benefit of their mates and their pockets!
Conference, we don't just want a seat at the table; we want to change the menu.
The TUC led by the CWU must recommit and be led by the disability community not the politicians. We must support the movement to move united and We must stand with our disabled members, not just in words, but in struggle.
I move. Solidarity.
Lee Starr-Elliott
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