TUDA News
NOVEMBER 2006
Inside
this issue…
Page 2 TUDA
launches Access to work campaign
Pages
3 – 8 TUC
Disability Conference – report and update
Page 8 & 9 Do Unto Others by Joanna
Whisker
Page 10 TUDA’s
Disability Charter is launched, BCODP Funding Cut
Page
11 How
to join TUDA
Our website www.tuda.org.uk also has lots of news and
information
Just a thought from the TUDA newsletter editor
In an attempt to try to save TUDA money and speed up the provision of information, if you have e-mail (and we understand not everyone does), would any TUDA members like to have all future newsletters via e-mail? Please let us know! E-mail your editor Richard Cook on findcook@hotmail.com
TO CONTACT TUDA
Secretary Alan Martin, Membership
Secretary Sherrell Brett and Co-Chairs Ju Gosling & Caroline Gooding can be
contacted via our box number, BM TUDA, London WC1N 3XX. Email: mail@tuda.org.uk
The newsletter editor, Richard Cook is
at 141 Vale Road, Northfleet, Kent DA11 8BX or at findcook@hotmail.com.
Please tell us of any issues you feel we
should cover. We encourage people to submit both information and articles for
inclusion, so get writing if you can.
Views expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily those of all the trade unions represented on our Executive but reflect the opinion and policies of most of them.
On December 6th of
this year, new legislation will come into force making it illegal for disabled
people to be discriminated against when using taxis and private hire vehicles.
STOP PRESS: TUDA ACTS TO SAVE ACCESS TO
WORK
In May the
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that from October 2006
Jobcentre Plus would not fund Access to Work support required by people working
in a government department. Departments will instead pay for new and ongoing
disability adjustments out of their running costs. There was no prior
consultation with disabled people or unions on the likely impact of such a
change.
The
‘Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People’ Report (produced by
No 10’s Strategy Unit in 2005) suggests that ATW might ‘in due course’ be
withdrawn from the whole public sector. This would be an unmitigated disaster
for the employment prospects of disabled people.
The justification is that the public sector has a role in
promoting equality for disabled people and therefore should include the costs
of employing disabled people in their ‘expenditure baselines’. This
would ‘free up’ additional funds for use by small and medium size
businesses.
ATW is the corner stone for equality of opportunities in
employments – and is as vital to public sector employees as to private
sector employees. Trade unions should oppose the ‘playing off’ of
one group of workers against another. Rather than withdrawing funding from
public sector disabled employees to increase the budget for those working for
small private sector employers, the overall budget for this extremely
successful scheme needs to be increased.
The withdrawal of
Access to Work funding takes place at a time when budgets are being cut across
the public sector. It is hard to credit the Government seriously believes that
in this hard financial climate the public sector job opportunities for disabled
people who require significant additional support costs will not be severely
affected.
It is also hard
reconcile this change with the Government’s professed objective of
transferring large numbers of disabled people from dependence on benefits to
employment.
TUDA is contacting public sector unions and disability
organisations to launch a campaign to save Access to Work based on the
following demands:
* Access to work funding for disabled workers in Government
Departments must be re-instated.
* Eligibility for AtW support to be a statutory right for
all disabled people.
* There must
be a substantial increase in service and publicity budgets for the AtW scheme
* Current delays must be tackled by streamlining and shortening the process of assessment.
Comment: The conference was largely
successful. Repeatedly delegates were asked if their access needs were being
met which was good, but things had to move quite fast at the end in order to
complete all the business.
Resolution 1 -
Access to Work (resolutions 1, 2, 3)
The General Secretary Brendan Barber
wrote to John Hutton following our conference. He has had a response with lots
of words but with little meaning.
Despite this, it was decided that Mark
Fysh would speak to the General Secretary again because members still had very
many concerns.
Resolution 2
- Benefit reform (Composite 1 – motions 4 and 6 and amendments; and
resolution 5)
We just
don’t know what the plans are, so we will have to wait and see. The TUC
protects non-working as well as working people. TUC Equality Officer Peter
Purton has been in constant liaison with Richard Excell, the Trade Union DRC
Commissioner, but we simply do not yet know what the Government intends.
Resolution 3
- Poverty (resolutions 7, 8) Some are and some are not existing TUC policy. Letters have
been written and we await a reply.
Resolution 4
- Reasonable Adjustments (resolution 9, amendment) This overlaps things on ATW. In
addition, the General Secretary has written to the Government, but statutory
guidance cannot be changed except by parliamentary action. The resolution
highlighted problems caused by delays in implementing reasonable adjustments,
and invited the TUC to ask the Disability Rights Commission to issue
strengthened guidance on when delay itself became an illegal act. It also
called for more resources for ATW and a statutory right to disability leave,
and for the involvement of trade union safety representatives where disabled
staff are awaiting adjustments.
Action The issues around ATW will be
addressed in the action reported previously. The TUC will additionally contact
the DRC to discuss ways in which additional guidance on the matters raised can
be produced. The TUC’s Health and Safety officers will be invited to
consider the points raised about the role of safety representatives.
Resolution
5 - Organising disabled people (resolution 10) The resolution did not call for any
specific action or new policy. The opportunity for trade unions to recruit
disabled members is an integral part of the work of the TUC to promote
understanding and backing for disability issues across the trade union movement
through publications, training and campaigning which will continue.
Resolution 6 - Mental health (resolution 11, amendment) The resolution notes the
disproportionate ignorance about and discrimination against people with mental
health issues in employment, and notes the role of a long hour’s culture
in worsening the situation.
Action: Following earlier work in association with the Disability Rights
Commission to highlight issues around mental health and employment (itself
following a large-scale national campaign run by MIND with TUC backing some
years ago), a joint TUC/DRC web-based advice guide on mental health and
employment is about to be published, serving as a resource for workplace
representatives and trade union officers and covering a wide range of questions
associated with mental health issues. Its availability will be widely
publicised across the trade union movement and it will be available from both
the TUC and DRC websites. Discussion is also taking place with Unionlearn about
including more on mental health in TU Education.
Resolution 7 - Disability discrimination indicators
(resolution 12) The
resolution calls for the TUC to examine statistical indicators of disability
discrimination and work to remove barriers. The TUC does routinely study
statistics that demonstrate the position of disabled people, and uses such
information to back its ongoing campaigns, and publications. This will
continue.
Neurodiverse people and HE (resolution 13) The resolution identifies the
effect of the Government’s “Respect” agenda in relation to
neurodiverse people, with negative impact on their chances of participating in
higher education.
Action The TUC has written to the Home Secretary to draw attention to the way
that the Government’s “respect” agenda is contributing to the
exclusion faced by many neurodiverse people and to call for guidance to be
issued and training to be put in place that tackles these concerns.
Educational institutions (resolutions 14, 15) The resolutions identify that many
employers fail to comply with their DDA obligation to consider reasonable
adjustments, and that in particular the delegation of employer functions to school/college
governing bodies increases the difficulty of achieving redeployment, and
flexible working arrangements. Lack of resources also reduces the prospect of
disabled teachers obtaining employment because of inaccessible workplaces.
Action The TUC has written to the Department for Education to draw attention to
the consequences of delegation for disabled teachers in terms of Access to
Work, redeployment, reasonable adjustment (etc), and to the National Council
for School Leadership and the Training and Development Agency to encourage
greater attention to access for disabled people to training and employment as
teachers.
Disability Equality Training (resolutions 16, and amendment,
17) The resolutions
note the numerous cases where fundamental lack of understanding of disability
leads to discrimination and exclusion, and calls for recognition of the
fundamental importance of disability equality training in the workplace and in
trade union education. The amendment adds recognition of the role of the Disability
Champions scheme (the Committee, in supporting the motion, expressed a
reservation at this being seen as the only possible model and made the point
about the importance of disability equality training being provided by disabled
people themselves).
Action The TUC has advocated disability equality training as the best mechanism
for increasing understanding of disability issues in its recent major
publications and will continue to urge unions to adopt this approach with
employers, especially in the early days of the Disability Equality Duty when
the opportunity to persuade public sector bodies to invest in training their
staff will be highest. The TUC also continues to support the Disability
Champions training programme as an excellent route to increasing the number of
workplace representatives who have knowledge and understanding of the DDA and
disability employment issues. Discussions are also taking place with Unionlearn
to promote further training for trade unionists on disability equality, with particular
reference to the DED.
Constitutional (resolution 18) The resolution called for the
constitution of the TUC to be amended to allow the equality conferences to
submit two motions to TUC Congress and for direct representation from the
Conferences on the General Council.
Action A similar motion was submitted to Congress 2006 by the LGBT Conference,
where it was defeated. The item will be dealt with under a later item on the
agenda of the Committee.
Performance measures (resolution 19) The resolution highlights continued
discrimination against disabled people in performance appraisal schemes. It
calls for the promotion of the making of “soft” adjustments to
individual and team targets to counter discrimination against disabled workers.
Action The TUC has been aware of the discrimination described in the resolution
as a result of previous reports, and research projects, and has incorporated
the issue into its recent updated advice to unions, Disability and Work. This publication has been well received
and widely distributed throughout the trade union movement (a reprint being
necessary because of the demand).
Emergency Planning (resolution 20) The resolution calls for unions to
be reminded that when employers are making plans to cope with emergencies,
disabled people are not disadvantaged.
Action The TUC will circulate unions
inviting them to provide any examples of good practice in this area, which will
then be shared with unions through the TUC website.
Disability
Equality Duty (resolutions 21, 22) The resolution welcomes the DED but asks that the TUC
campaign for its extension to the private sector, that ATW be extended and
disability leave introduced, and that advice be provided for unions on
particular aspects.
Resolution 22
calls for the TUC itself to adopt an equality scheme. It was explained to
conference that the original proposal (to adopt a race equality scheme) had
been superseded by a new equality plan and that work on this was ongoing within
the TUC.
Action Much of the action called for is
standing policy and has been incorporated into the TUC’s advice on the
DED. The best expectation on extending the duty beyond the public sector lies
now with the Single Equality Act, and this issue will be taken into account as
part of TUC lobbying.
There will be
no difficulty in publishing a revised edition of Promoting Disability
Equality to
incorporate additional advice encouraging unions to negotiate with employers on
funding to remove barriers and incentives for disabled people to declare their
status, if concrete examples of success in such negotiations – and in
particular, successful outcomes for disabled people – are provided by
affiliated unions. The TUC has invited members of the Committee, and equality
officers, to provide such examples.
Discussion on
whether and how the TUC should adopt a general equality scheme is ongoing
within the Organisation.
Housing
(resolution 23) The
resolution covers the issue of housing becoming accessible for disabled people.
The Committee explained to conference that the TUC does not have the resources;
the knowledge or the expertise to progress the detailed matters covered by the
resolution and is not in a position to undertake a campaign on this matter. The
union proposing the motion (NUJ) will be invited to provide sufficient detailed
information including on Government departmental responsibilities; to enable
the TUC to write to the relevant minister raising the main concerns expressed.
He said he was
pleased to have been invited. The Government’s aim was set out to deliver
substantive equality for disabled people by 2025. This vision is what the
Labour Party and Trade Unions are all about: an equality that stretches back to
Beveridge and sees the right to work as being fundamental: an equality that
gives respect and improve the rights of disabled people. In Britain with the
DDA we have much better legislation than any other country. Our aim is to
deliver enforceable and comprehensive civil rights for disabled people.
Jobcentre Plus and the New Deal means employment has risen twice as fast as the
population as a whole. But we realise we have more to do if we are to achieve
our goal of substantive improvements. For those who can, we believe that work
is the best way out of poverty. We set ourselves an 80% target for employment,
with security for those that cannot work with a higher level of benefit. The
pilots have shown that we can make a difference to disabled people. The Office
of Disabled People has been set up specifically to deal with this. John thanked
us for listening to him.
Questions: I
said I was pleased people would be empowered and our views will be heard. I
said I would tell him a little story. Telling him I was asked to answer some
questions for DWP. I wrote back and said can you please send me the form by
e-mail, in a format that I can deal with, but heard nothing. Later I had
another letter that said we need your reply urgently. I rang and said what I
had done. They said we don’t send things by e-mail. Well Mr Hutton it is
just not good enough. Please can I have a commitment in future that you will
provide information in whatever format people require?
Answer: We are
working very hard to improve and we need to do more so we are actually
considering that at the moment.
The funding
for Access to Work has tripled. Huge wrong things to be righted still, but some
things have got better. John admitted that IB & SDA are indeed falling and
it is not out of control. There were many questions reflecting people’s
frustration. Mr Hutton said, don’t believe the majority of stories
because the stories are just totally rubbish. Mr Hutton’s message was we
have nothing to fear!
He gave a
comprehensive report of the Disability Committee and an interesting summary of
his own personal history.
He said it is
an honour to speak to this conference. The subjects to talk about are what are
happening to disabled people generally and what is happening to benefits in
particular. Disabled people’s rights and responsibilities and the rights
and wrongs of the Green Paper. Those who have read the documents will recognise
a fair bit of what he was saying. So what’s happening that is positive?
We have called our response to the Green Paper a positive approach because
there is more to be positive about, but there are things to be angry about too.
Disabled organisations did a lot to achieve this and we should be proud.
Incapacity benefit media stories are mainly wrong, saying it is out of control
because of fraud and malingering. But do we have the same responsibilities?
Well, we are still a long way from achieving that, and to be fair the
government has recognised that. The report on Life Chances is a huge step
forward, but we have to watch out in case the Government starts backsliding.
The Pathways to Work, due to lobbying, is the most successful employment
programme this country has ever had and will now operate all over the country.
A couple of
problems however: Resources, it can only be successful if the way in which
disabled people enter the system is made better by making sure the assessments
are fair, and it cannot be done on the cheap. Conditionally regime, the
spending on employment programmes at adequate levels but it is still no where
near reaching the level of demand. The second problem is the plans for delivery
arrangements. At Pathways to Work it was a great success and we agree with that
statement, because the staff actually worked night and day to achieve what they
did. Contracting out rarely makes a saving because our public sector is so
good. The government seems to want to privatise even though they have accepted that
argument. That will make it difficult for disabled people.
Jane first
talks about this tricky issue. She has been thinking about this for about three
years. This is not centred on a moral, ethical or faith-based position on the
right to live or die. I think it is impossible to introduce a regulatory
framework to support disabled people and not put them at risk. I do not think
the time is right for this debate or this legislation. I believe that our
current socio-economic climate discriminates against people with severe or
terminal illnesses.
Tom: We will
start with choice: we demand choice, we want to choose. So the first point is,
it is inconsistent that we should have control of our lives until it comes to
dying. The disability movement has always promoted the principal of equality.
Disabled people could not kill themselves safely but non-disabled people could.
There is an anomaly here. You can refuse life saving treatment but you
can’t request the right to die. It is not about killing disabled people;
it is about people with a terminal incurable illness.
We were thanked for a mature and considered debate on this subject.
TUDA supporter Joanna Whisker has written another heartfelt article to
share with members. Again some people can probably identify with it. Joanna has
been a wheelchair user since 1984 when an accident resulted in a high-level
spinal cord injury. Following rehabilitation at Stoke Mandeville Hospital,
she’s now busy writing, motorcycling and promoting the rights of disabled
people. Having fun is a top priority, too, as is enjoying her family and meeting
lots of lovely people. Read on …
DO UNTO
OTHERS……………. Vandel
Victors
Imagine. You
are lying in a hospital bed, flat on your back, staring at a white ceiling,
enclosed by white walls. Make your
body go completely limp and dead.
You cannot move a muscle from the neck down.
Imagine. Your head is fixed by a two-pound
weight suspended from a metal cradle.
The legs of the cradle are screwed into three holes drilled into your
skull. You cannot move your head.
Imagine. It is August. It is hot. A wasp lands on your mouth. No one is near. You cannot shout for help in case it
decides to investigate your tonsils.
After a ticklish stroll around your lips, it decides to look up your
nose. You try hard to blow down
through your nostrils, to blow it away. But with reduced lung capacity all you
can do is treat the wasp to a cooling breeze.
Imagine. The wasp was hungry and looking for
food. Its intentions were probably honourable but you are not in the best
position to ask. Eventually
it flies away.
Imagine. You thank any and every God available
that it did not sting you, and that your paralysis alleviated all risk of
brown-stained sheets.
In August 1984
I was that person, and I have a lot to thank that wasp for. With the in-born
arrogance of human beings I thought I was indestructible, unbreakable. An accident proved otherwise, but what
the wasp taught me was the feeling of being intimidated when completely
powerless. I had to wait for it to
leave on its terms. That wasp had
no desire to intimidate me, it was searching for food: a gentle predator. One of the most successful predators on
this planet is Man, and we have perfected intimidation to a level of cruelty
unknown in other species, and with a subtlety that could be described as an art
form.
Dictators
across the world demonstrate how power corrupts; how they intimidate their
people physically, emotionally, economically. Hate crime against disadvantaged groups in this country will
not go away. Men still use their
physical strength to abuse women, and women still use emotional blackmail to
abuse men. Paedophiles destroy the sexual moral code. Verbal abuse surrounds
us, and bullying in school has been, and remains a problem.
From my own
experience, I believe the majority of young people are a positive force in the
community, and have no wish to intimidate or be intimidated. However, there still remains a vestige
of fear related to people who are a ‘bit different’, who do not look
or behave quite the same as everyone else, who do not have as much confidence
and self-esteem as everyone else.
Fear can paralyse people, creating an inability to answer or fight back,
and give the impression they are willing victims to bullying techniques.
You and me,
let’s learn together. The
first lesson is - do not become that wasp exploring someone’s
nostril. Remember that imagined
feeling of powerlessness. Do unto
others……..
Disability Charter
is launched
TUDA
officially launched the Trade Union Charter for Disability Equality
during a very successful fringe meeting at the TUC Disabled Members'
Conference. The first unions to sign up were Bectu and the Communication
Workers Union (CWU).
The
Charter is intended to enable unions to make a positive commitment to
fulfilling their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
within a social model of disability context. It is accompanied by a briefing
document, which shows how the Charter is linked to the DDA and the
accompanying Code of Practice.
The
Charter was finalised after a six-month consultation period, where all
trade unio