Introduction Brazilian private and public employers must reserve jobs to hire persons with disabilities. The inclusion operates precariously. Often employees are required to work in low skills jobs following taylorism-fordism or toyotism production modes. This study aimed to investigate perceived job experiences of workers with disabilities and impact on health.

Methods This is a qualitative case study carried in São Paulo, Brazil. Focus groups (6) and interviews (4) with people with physical disabilities and deaf were performed. Physical disabilities were acquired in some cases as a result of work injuries, due to unsafe work conditions, and the perversity of the system projecting the worker to a condition of disabled person.

Results It prevails the discourse of disabled workers with unqualified skills. It is sought to include those who depend on few adaptations of the work environment. The requirements for professional qualification are based on the ‘ideology of adjustment’. It becomes effective as inclusion programs aim to discipline behaviours, organisers of social life. These are requirements regarding subjectivity, modes of living, with emphasis on individual persistence and overcoming difficulties. Subtle control operates through the discourse of inclusion and the worker acquires the condition of reification.

Discussion Nowadays the deaf are limited in the use of their main mode of communication, the hands. There is a discourse in the companies about the ‘productive deaf’ reproducing the cultural isolation of the deaf people. The excluded, disguised as included, experience suffering related to social injustices and psychological violence. Regarding the work injuries, the degradation and precariousness of work generate a subpopulation of persons with disabilities, but denies them access to an effective rehabilitation system. Public policies should prevent the production of a double discrimination. It is also necessary to change the common speech labelling the disabled person as a disqualified professional.