The 2nd Newcastle Conference

February 05 saw the fourth visit of the project to Tyneside and our 2nd conference in Newcastle. The event was chaired by Amicus Regional Officer Ian Davis and was the first in this years series of 12 regional conferences across England, Wales Scotland and Ireland.

Mo O'Toole MEP was the first speaker. She gave a very interesting overview of the European influence on legislation around the equalities agenda and specifically with regard to disability. She highlighted areas where Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the EU Convention of Human Rights had provided a solid platform to build domestic legislation. She said she was optimistic that with the combination of the EU, Government initiatives and continuing campaigning and work from the unions that change would come "thick and fast"

Amicus National Equalities Office, Linda McCulloch and Project Worker Dave Parr Then gave a background to the historical development of the project from it's conception in 2002 to the present position. Linda said she was confident that commitments to rights for equalities reps included in the Warwick agreement would be delivered in the next term of a Labour Government should the election go Labour's way. Dave talked about the development of the relationship with Scope and how Disability Champions were ideally positioned to address some of the many issues highlighted in Ready Willing and Disabled.

CIS Insurance's Disability Champion, Dave Williams, told the seminar about his work as a Champion and gave examples of some of the things he and the company have done. A recent success is the introduction of Disability Leave so members are not getting into disciplinary cases for unavoidable time off related to their impairment. He is currently looking into ways to redeploy three profoundly deaf workers into a call centre. The initial suggestion was to use sign language interpreters to relay calls but, after consultation with the members, a text message helpline is to be set up. This gives the societies customers a further option for contact and the workers have no problems using the technology: an ideal win-win!

In an attempt to avoid the problems of getting people onto training courses after conferences Carol Wood from Newcastle College TU Studies Centre is t run a DC@W course commencing June 9th. She gave a presentation on the course content and encouraged the delegates to enrol.

The Workshops

The workshops in this second round of conferences are about identifying how delegates could make the project work in their workplaces. In workshop 1 delegates highlighted issues of access, employment, health and safety, returning to work and several other issues. They saw problems getting release for the training course and felt that it would take a Champion to go to tribunal and establish case law for release before many employers would be on side.

In workshop 2 the delegates took part in the first part of the 'two ticks' standard audit looking at their perceptions of their employers. This highlighted a number of differences between the service industries and manufacturing. People were keen to follow the next stages through and take the criteria to their employers.

Overall a great start to the busy year ahead delivering a number of names who wish to become Champions and get themselves trained. Also great to see Peter Ray in attendance; a Scope employee who gave many years of loyal service to the MSF DERNAC Committee.