Liz Kendall’s pernicious Green Paper will deprive thousands of people of their benefits, erect new barriers against disabled people currently in work, and drive those locked out of the labour market further into poverty.

It was positive that the TUC, together with many major trade unions, responded quickly to condemn this. They did not fall for Kendal’s rhetoric that she would get more disabled people into work – by ending access to the very benefit that covers additional costs.

Trade unionists understand that attacks on one section are attacks on us all. Anyone talking with disabled co-workers knows the myriad ways that impairments, visible or invisible, increase living costs – purchase and maintenance of necessary equipment such as powered wheelchairs, an expensive diet because of health conditions, extra heating for pain management, and funding for personal assistants.  Some unions and the TUC itself have structures through which disabled members organise and can raise matters of concern and call for solidarity.

But there is a weakness. When Unite’s Sharon Graham says ‘We must be protecting the most vulnerable in society’ or PCS’s Martin Kavanagh says that ‘to target the sick and disabled in particular is incredibly cruel’, they are ‘othering’ disabled people – including their own members, and suggesting they have no agency.

Disabled people are ‘vulnerable’ in capitalist society not because of particular impairments but rather as a result of barriers erected against people not seen as profitable. For all Kendall’s rhetoric of support for disabled people, no obligations are placed on employers to meet existing legislation. She continues cuddling up to the bosses against the workers. Disabled workers – and disabled people more generally – need solidarity not pity!

Meanwhile, people need to keep an eye on Kendall’s latest. In early April she announced possible moves to ‘reform’ (code for restrict) sick notes still further. What world is she living in when she brands this as ‘stopping people falling out of the workforce for health reasons’? Likewise her colleague Wes Streeting talks about the overdiagnosis of mental health conditions.

Few people today have access to ‘meaningful work’, as numbers on zero hours contracts and other forms of insecure work continue to grow. Employers are more draconian over time taken off for sickness – or for medical appointments – than they were when union density was greater and workplace organisation more effective. People often have to pay for sick notes – and they are disciplined if they take ‘too much time’ off work sick.  This is a vicious cycle which results in people with infections coming into work and spreading germs or viruses – including Covid – sometimes to those with compromised immune systems.

These are trade union issues and we need involvement in protests to complement statements from head office.