Disabled members look towards the general election

UNISON’s disabled members conference opened in Edinburgh at the weekend with a review of the union’s achievements over the past year in relation to disability equality, but also a disturbing picture of the problems that continue to be faced by members. Amanda Sweetlove, deputy co-chair of the disabled members committee (pictured above), moved the annual report to delegates of what was their largest ever conference. Ms Sweetlove reported that the committee had been “extremely busy” building on the successes of the 2022 year of disabled workers and embedding its focus on disability equality into all of UNISON’s work. “Some of our priorities were hybrid working, Access to Work, the cost of living crisis, reasonable adjustments and disability passports, to name a few,” she said. “We have trained scores of new branch disability officers, seen more disability policies and passports negotiated in our workplaces and achieved more than 150 employer sign-ups to the disability employment charter.” UNISON is a founding member of the ground-breaking charter, a set of nine demands of government that includes a new, two-week deadline for responses to reasonable adjustment requests. And with a general election around the corner, the union has been busily promoting the charter to both government and opposition. The annual report notes that UNISON has successfully negotiated for five of the charter’s asks to be included in the Labour policy platform: mandatory publication ...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: Article News disabled members Source Type: news