Summary: theconversation.com/what-autisti...

Team:
@dramypearson.bsky.social, Jen Leigh, @drmbothapsych.bsky.social, Steve Macdonald, @kat-williams.bsky.social, Gemma Williams, Kieran Rose, @annmemmott.bsky.social

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Difficult one, because for some of us, private healthcare is the only way we can get healthcare, thanks to the systemic & financial barriers. Horrifying prices, but, a chance of being alive. Totally in agreement with the awful underlying principles that have led to this.

Arguably, yes.
Expenditure on NHS looking after 70 million people is about £190 billion.
Total wealth of just 82 billionaires in the UK is around £300 billion.
The billionaires get richer, and richer, and the elderly lie in their own wee, in a corridor, in hospital.
It's not OK.

Absolutely horrifying impact.

No wonder the EHRC hid its guidance and is pleading with the Government to put some laws in place around this.

This is, of course, what we get when we decide to hate a whole minority because a very rich woman told us to do so.

Government? Active participants in behaviourists beliefs, alas. NHS, Education...

The research team (Helen Abnett, Kathryn Williams, Willow Holloway & Aimee Grant) look at how the biggest charities in England and Wales portray autistic people in their annual 'marketing report' (Annual Report).
It's....not good.

Do have a read.

Blimey.

Was he free to make reasonable requests of his 'employer'? No. The first time his advocates asked for him to be paid for even a little time, look what happened to him.

This
Is
Not
Charity.

Another exception may be where someone volunteers for a charity where most/all of their fellow workers are also volunteers. And making a reasoned personal decision to contribute to that charitable aim for no pay.

A wealthy store just not paying the disabled person? Nope.

For sure all of the big supermarkets made their money out of problematic ethical behaviour. My 'well done ASDA' relates to this particular individual rather than being a statement of affirmation of supermarket behaviour generally.

The exception may be for any company that is offering an internship, where people work for low or no pay for a short, set time to gain experience - with a definite and reasonable chance of getting employment at the end of it. And where both parties to that contract have a full understanding of it.

*Yes, I'm familiar with the legal definitions of Modern Slavery, and this fits. He wasn't 'volunteering'. There's no such job as volunteer Waitrose worker, & I doubt that he approached the store to say, "Gosh, I'd like to work for no pay at all, please". Unions have much to say on this.

This is the problem with 'charity thinking'. "If someone would say we are being 'kind' to the autistic man by giving him the 'opportunity' to 'work in the community', we can get away with exploiting him, and we get a pat on the back for it".
Ethics-free.