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Disabled members campaign for change

25 June 2009

While many PCS activists were in Brighton at our national conference, a small group of disabled members were at Congress House, London, for the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC) disability conference.

This annual event provides an opportunity to debate the TUC’s approach to a wide range of disability issues.

The impact of the recession featured heavily in this year’s motions and delegates called on the government to re-think its controversial welfare reform agenda which, it is feared, could have a detrimental impact on many disabled people.

Other issues delegates addressed include: the problems of inaccessible information technology; the lack of enforcement of the public sector duty to promote disability equality; and the dangers posed by the spread of shared surfaces, where road and pavement are merged into a single level, making it difficult for those with visual impairments to identify where one stops and the other starts.

PCS also placed an emergency motion on the agenda calling on the TUC and its affiliated unions to support our campaign to preserve the services provided by the Equality & Human Rights Commission helpline, which is facing proposed cuts of nearly 50%.

Our delegates were well represented in the debates throughout conference and equality officer Phil Madelin and PCS rep Jeff Grist were both re-elected to the TUC disability committee.

For more on our work with disabled members visit our disability equality pages.

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