West Midlands Conference
The West Midlands Conference took place at the Days Inn hotel in West Bromwich. Another well attended conference with lots of participation, contribution and activity.

This seminar was hosted and chaired by Regional Officer Steve Melia and hosted by Regional Secretary Terry Pye. Dorothy Fogg, Project Director, opened giving a background to the project and stressed it importance in building direct links between the union's equality and industrial agendas. She went on to describe her vision of a Disability Champion in every workplace. "this project has given us a clear focus for our campaigning activities as we move towards a single equality bill" she told the meeting.

Scope were unable to attend this seminar so it fell to Dave Parr to give a background to the work so far and explain how the Scope partnership evolved. "Scope have a vast wealth of knowledge on disability issues that will help you in your role as a Champion", he said. "in return we will be able to help progress many of the issues highlighted in 'Ready, Willing and Disabled".

Dave went on to give a presentation about the Disability Discrimination Act and the changes that came into force in October 2004 and those that will be introduced by the new Disability Bill. This was well received and generated a number of questions and comments.

In the afternoon Dave gave a demonstration of this website and then handed over to Andy Becker from Sandwell College. He is starting a 5 day training course on June 6th at his centre very close to the conference venue.

Both the morning and afternoon workshops went well. Here are the key points raised:-

The Workshops

What are the main issues in your workplaces regarding disability?
  • Management think if they ignore disability issues they will go away
  • People need advice and guidance on adjustments
  • Constant pressure on staff to retrain
  • Awareness of access issues
  • Hidden disabilities
  • 'Positive diversity agenda' with no substance
  • People embarrassed or afraid of 'coming out'
  • Employers are not pro-active
How would the Disability Champion's role fit in with your local union structures?
  • Keep role separate, other reps busy enough
  • Joint training?
  • Use existing committees
  • Develop Equality Reps
  • Extend the safety rep's role
What problems do you think you will face from your management recruiting Champions, getting trained and carrying out your role?
  • Time and cost of training
  • Need lots of time to get the role up and running
  • Company feel they do enough complying with the law
  • Problems until direct legal recognition
  • Making it happen in heavy engineering
  • Getting willing hands
How will you address these problems?
  • Meetings with HR/management
  • Agree interpretation of law
  • Policies and procedures
  • Understand the legislation
  • Info from support team
  • Point out benefits

In the second workshop delegates looked at the first stage of the audit against the 'Two Ticks' standard. People found this useful and commented that they felt everything in the standard was achievable if employers were genuinely committed to disability equality.