Today, on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we take the opportunity to reject the cuts and dismantling of the Law on the Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for Dependent Persons...
Today, on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we take the opportunity to reject the cuts and dismantling of the Law on the Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for Dependent Persons by the government of Mariano Rajoy.
Explaining the term disabled is of great importance, as it allows us to estimate with great precision what we are going to talk about before referring to it. Disability can be conceptualized as the impediment that some people have to carry out the usual activities of human beings. In Spain, 8.5% of the population needs some type of help to carry out their daily tasks and, although, as the years go by, the issue of disability has been gaining strength within society, we have realized that the disabled have the same duties and rights as any other person, and that like them they have to have opportunities to develop fully.
Since the Popular Party arrived at La Moncloa, the Dependency Law, promoted by the PSOE, has been questioned. Only twelve months have passed to dismantle in such an insensitive way most of the laws and social rights that cost all Spaniards so much effort. They have reduced funds by more than 30%, reduced economic benefits to family caregivers by 15%, not counting those that each Autonomous Community will apply, while at the same time increasing co-payments to dependents and their family caregivers have lost the Social Security contributions that the government financed.
Therefore, from the PSOE we demand that the Government take support measures for Special Employment Centers, and also that the subsidy for the salary cost corresponding to jobs occupied by people with disabilities be extended to 75% of the minimum wage for groups with special difficulties in entering the labor market. We demand that the Government restore the resources allocated to active employment policies for people with disabilities; and to give full validity again to the "State measures for labor insertion of people with disabilities", as well as to the Spanish Employment Strategy 2012-2014. We request guarantees from the Government so that the different Administrations settle the debt contracted in terms of aid to labor inclusion that they have with many companies and entities of the Third Social Sector.
And, finally, we urge the Government to approve a new regulation to promote the labor inclusion of people with disabilities, which renews the employment framework for people with disabilities, which has just turned 30 years old and which no longer serves the objectives for which it arose. People with disabilities are suffering a clear setback in the social achievements and rights obtained over these years. The Socialist Party has always defended the rights and freedoms of people with disabilities. We will continue working together with the Third Sector, essential allies, to achieve a better, more committed and more participatory society, and we will continue to defend equal opportunities and social cohesion as a priority.
*Isaías González Rijo, Secretary of Citizen Participation and Social Movements of the PSOE