Disabilities and Advocates Delegation
People with Disabilities Deserve Actual, Distinct, Permanent Political Power!
The first victims of every bad policy and every social stigma are the disabled. The first victims of poverty and capitalism are the disabled. The primary victims of every disaster, natural and man-made, are the disabled. More and more people are disabled every day, either from working conditions, physical or mental illness, accidents, inaccessible transit and workplaces, and even by rapidly changing hiring environments and the rise of automation. If that wasn’t enough, systemic and interpersonal ableism confronts people with disabilities every day on the street, in media, and in the workplace.
Disability will never go away, and all abled people will eventually become disabled if they live long enough. Disability can affect any person at any time, and it can be imposed by the system just as easily as by an injury. People with mental and physical disabilities have existed and will exist as long as there are people. Current estimates show that nearly 25% of people are disabled on Turtle Island.
Disability can feel extremely limiting to the ability for people to live a full and dignified existence, and in our current system, (as well as many preceding systems) it is the case for many millions of people. But the level of hardship in the social, economic, medical, and political realms faced by people with disabilities is directly correlated to that society’s material levels of accessibility and representation of disabled people in government.
Despite a record 10% of politicians with disabilities in the US, all aspects of our capitalist society are still plagued with accessibility issues, workplace discrimination, and social ableism. In the modern crisis, dozens of accessibility and inclusion programs, budgets, and institutions have been axed, protections reneged, and millions of people are at risk of losing, or have already lost, a basic quality of life. Even if these institutions are restored in the future, critical care will be inaccessible for years. If these systems are unreliable at securing accessibility and care, we have to build outside of them now.
A New Model of Inclusion
The Disabilities Delegation of the Worker-Tenant Council is a co-equal delegation, meaning that no matter how few members it contains, the delegation’s voting results equal one full delegatory vote in council business.
All local working class people with disabilities of any kind and their designated advocates are entitled to membership in the Disabilities Delegation. All members of this delegation are voting members, as in all delegations, while the leadership is deprived of a vote as such. The delegation elects its own leadership to guide discussion, and to act as the primary point of contact on all disabilities delegation affairs.
Leaders from the Disabilities Delegation will open, lead, and close all council discussions and votes on topics related to their marginalization. Those topics are primarily accessibility, healthcare, and systemic or interpersonal ableism. Members of this delegation will also chair any Council committees on these topics
Every Worker-Tenant Council is responsible for consistently creating an accessible and accommodating meeting space that enables every community member to full participation. This includes but is not limited to mobility accessibility, sensory accessibility, secure remote accessibility, as well as other accessibilities as presented by this delegation.