The legitimacy of a charitable model of disability in corporate social responsibility.

Mugabi, Ivan K 2017. The legitimacy of a charitable model of disability in corporate social responsibility. Presented at: 3rd Annual ASper INTLaw Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 25-26 April 2017.

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Abstract

This paper must elucidate how the dependency on charitable deeds remains one of the means globally used by transnational corporations in advancing and demonstrating their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagements with activities of persons with disabilities. The paper will demonstrate why the perceptive of the above charity centred approaches might portray transnational corporations as compromising protecting of employability arguments in the context of investing in courses of CSR. This paper connects that the origins of the charity model to aspects of international disability to the widespread industrialisation the across Europe the nineteenth century. The paper notes that given the increased levels of urbanisation at the time, there was an increase in demand for providing labour throughout the factory-based systems that comprised the formed industrial plants. The paper shall use ideas of productivity and profitability of labour in illustrating why such a complex of the political economy played a role in worsening the categorisation of persons with disabilities as being unproductive or uncompetitive individuals. That made persons with disabilities prone to more exclusion from the mainstream workforce as unfit for matching the aspirations of purely universalised and impliedly demining attitudes of profit-minded employers. Obviously, systems of capitalistic institutions have a tendency of prioritising competition. Thus rationale for recruiting and rewarding of the most productive and profitable individuals in all aspects of life. Whereas comparatively excluding the recruitment and appreciation of certain individuals that perceived as more costly in supporting, slower in adopting change and slightly less productive in eyes of transnational corporations that are founded on shareholding concepts profit maximisation capitalistic ideologies. The paper advances an argument that in this context, where the value for labour becomes associated with its contribution to the marginal cost. This approach can only works when employees make an equal contribution to marginal cost. However, evidence suggests that disabled employees make a lower contribution than their work colleagues do, resulting in losses in production and lower profits for the employer. That above perspective partly accounts for the traditional outlook of persons with disabilities as unfit for constituting a productive work. Thence seemingly more suitable to depend on philanthropic concepts of corporate social responsibility in which global multinational entities have demonstrated their moral obligations of contributing to fundraising activities of charities and non-profit centred institutions. The paper must explain why this commercial viable perspective creates a mind-set that compromises and contradicts the argument of advocating for inclusion of persons with disabilities in the paradigm of employment law and thence worth exploring the effects on earning a decent living. This argument is analogous with the tradition of limiting the financial independence of persons with disabilities to the funds available in the international disability fund (IDP). In essence, there are two important aspects worthwhile noting; firstly, the charity model has been economically detrimental to the consolidation of work related aspirations for persons with disabilities as subjectable to such civil liberties. Secondly, the charity model believes in the notion of rendering financial support to persons with disabilities using charities. That approach is contrary to using employment as a tool of empowering persons with disabilities to earn personal incomes, or have their own individual budgets. A peripheral aspect is that such a trend leads to excluding persons with disabilities from being consumers worth taking into account when designing marketing strategies. Therefore, the model constrains financial autonomy while increasing financial dependency thus becoming a likely hindrance to a decent standard of living. Therefore, the charity model could increase the likelihood of attitudes that provide rationality for the exclusion of persons with disabilities from being employable in the mainstream workforce and consequently denying them decent wages. In the same vain, the model could account for the inequalities between persons with disabilities and those without disabilities. By encouraging attitudes of dependency on charity funds for personal survival or expenses, consequently charities becoming the ultimate source of income for persons with disabilities as well as their families.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Law Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS)
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Related URLs:	Organisation
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2022 01:47
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/110413

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