- Conference
- 2016 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 October 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference believes all disabled women should be supported and enabled to get or maintain gainful employment and career progression.
There are numerous layers that impact upon disabled women when attempting to get or maintain gainful employment.
These include:
• Caring responsibilities (children and older relatives);
• Accessible support to manage their disability(ies);
• Financial constraints (zero hour contracts; gender inequality relating to pay and having to work longer hours and multiple jobs);
• Increased propensity to experience mental ill-health due to disability;
• Workplace sickness regimes – disproportionately affecting disabled women.
However, the shape of the picture for disabled workers depends on how deeply you look. When it comes to disabled people in the workforce, things like gender and the type of disability have a huge impact.
Conference welcomes the TUC’s comprehensive research on disability and employment published in May 2015. This showed that whilst the employment rate for non-disabled people in Great Britain is 79.1 per cent, the employment rate for all disabled people is much lower at 46.4 per cent.
However, conference is particularly concerned that the research reaffirmed the point that people with mental ill health fare among the worst of all disabled people. The employment rate for disabled people whose primary impairment is (what the Labour Force Survey calls) mental illness, phobias or anxietys is an appalling 22.8 per cent – less than half of the already low rate for all disabled people.
Conference calls on the national women’s committee to work with the national disabled members’ committee, the NEC and Service groups to:
1)Promote full compliance by employers with the Public Sector Equality Duty, particularly in relation to reasonable adjustments for disabled women workers
2)Work with national employer bodies to urge them to promote the employment of disabled women
3)Raise awareness of the Access to Work help available for women with mental health impairments
4)Work together to produce and publicise guidance to support disabled women in the workplace regarding accessing training, career progression and reasonable adjustments.
