UPIAS

Introduction: UPIAS (The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) was an important organisation in the development of the disabled people's movement in the United Kingdom as it firmly placed "disability" within a social context. What follows is an edited extract from an article by political activist Judy Hunt which was first published in "Coalition" magazine in 2000.

OUR HISTORY- The Start of the Union

UPIAS was founded in 1972. It was started by Paul Hunt when he wrote a letter to the Guardian inviting disabled people to join with him to form a group to tackle disability. Paul formed his ideas whilst living in an institution. He and other residents had been involved in a long and bitter struggle with the authorities over the right of disabled people to have control over their lives.

The group of people who responded to Paul's invitation, became UPIAS. Now what was unusual at this time, was that they decided to take some time, about 18 months, to discuss and consider disability before rushing into action, which was the more usual tendency. And so it was that UPIAS became the first disability liberation group in the UK, and one of the first in the world, and certainly the most advanced in the world.

They said that disability was something that could be challenged and eliminated. They were, as the name The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation suggests, in total opposition to Segregation, and not just "for Integration" which was already quite generally applauded. Lots of people were for Integration, but they came out and said "no, we're opposed to Segregation".

The breakthrough came in 1981, which was declared International Year of Disabled People, by the United Nations. By this time, the union had developed a political vanguard, and it took the lead to start to build a grass-roots movement. What it did, was to invite the few national groups that then existed in the country, that were actually managed by disabled people, to come together to form a Council. This became the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People, or BCODP as it's known now.

When that happened, the union introduced the BCODP to the social definition as a working basis for the new Council and they accepted it, which was a major step. The same year, 1981, similar changes had been going on internationally and there was a move to form a disabled people's international. BCODP was able to send representatives to the inaugural conference, in Singapore, and one of the members who went was Vic Finkelstein. He was then chair of the BCODP but he was also a member of UPIAS. They took the idea of the social definition to the DPI, argued the case and won the battle to get the DPI to accept the social definition, rather than go back to the World Health Organisation's medical definitions.

UPIAS was important for exposing disability as an oppressive relationship, and a power relationship of control. It was these ideas, taken on by the disabled people's movement, that became the important liberating factor in the movement. The disabled people's movement represents a social movement of the most oppressed, the most disadvantaged people in society, with potentially the least control. And there I would extend it, and argue there are parallels for people with learning difficulties, for people who've been through the Mental Health system, and for elderly people - groups who have also been pushed out of the mainstream.