Employers may find it an added burden to employ disabled people. That, to some extent, I understand but do not condone. Add to that, if there is a law it has to be applied, without any arguments about being inconvenient.
When I first heard about the matter, Stephen Hawking came to mind. His physique may have problems but his mind is superlative. Imagine if he were not given an opportunity because of his physical condition.
It was reported that the “Church” in Malta agreed with the view of the employers. I could not believe it was the case. The Archbishop is entitled to his personal opinions and he has every right to proclaim them but it does not automatically mean that, on certain issues, his position is that of the Church.
Although instinctively I felt it was not correct, yet, I had no authority to quote him. My immediate argument was that the Church speaks about and stresses human dignity without any distinction or discrimination. It charitably takes care of handicapped people and offers a service no government can supply. Indeed, there are cases that demand attention and care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
But there is a fundamental difference between ‘charity’ and ‘dignity’. Perhaps this is best illustrated in the adage: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Work and being useful give dignity. I have known many people, in all walks of life, who had manifest physical handicaps but who performed their duties with the same efficiency as others, if not better, at times.
But, coming back to the argument about the position of the Church on work and handicapped persons, finally I found what I wanted.
In 1981, St John Paul IIpublished an encyclical letter, Laborem Exercens. It was intended to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Rerum Novarum and deals with “human work”.
What is relevant to the present argument is paragraph 22, titled, ‘The disabled persona and work’, as downloaded:
“Recently, national communities and international organisations have turned their attention to another question connected with work, one full of implications: the question of disabled people. They too are fully human subjects with corresponding innate, sacred and inviolable rights and, in spite of the limitations and sufferings affecting their bodies and faculties, they point up more clearly the dignity and greatness of man.
There is a fundamental difference between ‘charity’ and ‘dignity’
“Since disabled people are subjects with all their rights, they should be helped to participate in the life of society in all its aspects and at all the levels accessible to their capacities.
“The disabled person is one of us and participates fully in the same humanity that we possess. It would be radically unworthy of man, and a denial of our common humanity, to admit to the life of the community, and thus admit to work, only those who are fully functional. To do so would be to practise a serious form of discrimination, that of the strong and healthy against the weak and sick.
“Work in the objective sense should be subordinated, in this circumstance too, to the dignity of man, to the subject of work and not to economic advantage.
“The various bodies involved in the world of labour, both the direct and the indirect employer, should therefore by means of effective and appropriate measures foster the right of disabled people to professional training and work so that they can be given a productive activity suited to them.
“Many practical problems arise at this point, as well as legal and economic ones, but the community, that is to say, the public authorities, associations and intermediate groups, business enterprises and the disabled themselves should pool their ideas and resources so as to attain this goal that must not be shirked: that disabled people may be offered work according to their capabilities, for this is demanded by their dignity as persons and as subjects of work.
“Each community will be able to set up suitable structures for finding or creating jobs for such people both in the usual public or private enterprises, by offering them ordinary or suitably adapted jobs and in what are called ‘protected’ enterprises and surroundings.
“Careful attention must be devoted to the physical and psychological working conditions of disabled people – as for all workers – to their just remuneration, to the possibility of their promotion and to the elimination of various obstacles.
“Without hiding the fact that this is a complex and difficult task, it is to be hoped that a correct concept of labour in the subjective sense will produce a situation which will make it possible for disabled people to feel that they are not cut off from the working world or dependent upon society but that they are full-scale subjects of work, useful, respected for their human dignity and called to contribute to the progress and welfare of their families and of the community according to their particular capacities.”
Joseph Brincat is a former Labour Cabinet minister.