- Conference
- 2006 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2006
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 which will impose a new disability equality duty on public bodies and some private companies from December 2006. We believe this Duty could help reconstruct a barrier free society and provide equality of opportunity for the millions of disabled people who are in work, wanting work and those who need public and private services to promote independent living.
However, we feel government has not fully understood the complex and diverse nature of disability discrimination. In particular we are concerned that:
1)the duties do not extend to cover all major private sector employers;
2)no extra funding will be made available to employers to assist them with barrier removal;
3)efficiency reviews may compromise barrier removal by further reducing the funding available;
4)the government’s Access to Work funding may be restricted within public services;
5)draconian employment policies and practices may adversely affect disabled employees and disabled people seeking work.
Therefore, we call upon the National Executive Council to work with Labour Link, the General Political Fund Committee and Service Group Executives, as appropriate, to:
a)lobby government to extend the new Duties to employers operating in the private sector;
b)lobby government to increase resources available to disabled people and employers to remove the barriers to getting and keeping work;
c)negotiate adequate employer funding for barrier removal;
d)negotiate incentives for disabled people to declare disability status;
e)lobby employers to introduce disability leave policies and review existing employment policies to ensure that unfair sickness absence procedures and punitive practices are removed;
f)ask branches to encourage public service employers to display the UNISON sponsored “Beyond the Barriers” poster series as a statement of their commitment to improving work and other opportunities to disabled people.