An NUS campaign against the disability assessment company Atos has been launched at the University.
YUSU Disability Officer Thomas Ron and the Disabled Students’ Network have proposed action following concerns about the treatment of disabled people by the multinational organisation.
Atos, which carries out disability assessments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, has come under fire after allegations that they were “forcing” people to lose their benefits.
“I and the rest of the Disabled Students’ Network have been very concerned about the behaviour of ATOS and how it treats disabled people, which forces them to lose benefits that they need,” Ron said.
The benefits the company assesses includes Employment Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, and industrial injuries Disablement Benefit.
But there are further concerns that Atos are attempting to hire university students without them knowing this information.
“We intend to ask the Union to support student action against Atos should they arrive on campus and also to ask the university to not invite Atos on campus and not allow them space at careers fair, as their presence often causes distress to disabled students,” Ron added.
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Do Atos not simply comply to the benefit regulations/requirements laid out by the DWP?
Also, they do a lot more than just this one contract, so it seems a bit unfair to ban them from campus when a lot of student could potentially have great careers with Atos and never be invovled in the healthcare/dwp departments.
Finally, I struggle to see how you can blame Atos for trying to hire students without telling them ‘this information’. Surely, any student who applies for a job with Atos will go a simple Google search and quickly find out about the company’s criticisms.