Disabled workers’ job woes revealed

Published on 05/03/2013 00:00

DISABLED workers are significantly more likely to be insulted, ridiculed or intimidated at work than their non-disabled colleagues, researchers said.

People with physical or psychological disabilities or long-term illness were more likely to be given impossible deadlines, gossiped about or teased at work, according to researchers from Cardiff and Plymouth universities.

Researchers questioned about 4,000 people, 284 of them with a disability or long-term illness.

The study, published in the journal Work, Employment and Society, found that one in ten people who suffered from a disability or a long-term illness said that they had suffered physical violence at work, compared with 4.5 per cent other workers.