Advice on the Social Model of Disability
Advice for Unions on approaches to Disability
Trade Unions, disabled members, and the social model
Summary
Trade Unions have been in the forefront of campaigns for equal rights for disabled people and in particular, for equal access to, and non-discrimination in, employment. Increasingly, disabled trade unionists themselves are taking the lead in setting policy and guiding unions and the TUC on priorities and campaigns.
Trade unions are aware that they are subject to the Disability Discrimination Act and must not discriminate against disabled members or staff. TUC and union policy on disability equality goes further than mere compliance with this law. Just as trade unions and disabled people themselves have called for the implementation of the legal duty on public bodies positively to promote disability equality, not merely to respond to cases of discrimination, a stronger commitment to equality calls for unions to adopt the same proactive approach to how they operate.
An essential part of this needs to be a progressive understanding of the discrimination faced by disabled people and of disability itself. This requires understanding the significance of adopting the social as opposed to the medical model of disability. Although this may appear to be a philosophical debate, it has far-reaching practical consequences. The social model starts from the view that it is the barriers to inclusion that create the disability, not an individual's impairments. This approach has real significance both in the workplace, and in the way that unions work.
This document, arising from a decision of the 2007 TUC Disability Conference and prepared with the involvement of the TUC Disability Committee, recommends that unions review their rules, structures and practices to ensure that their approach to disability is consistent with the social model, working together with their disabled members to strengthen the commitment to equality. It was endorsed by the TUC Executive Committee and General Council in February 2008.
1. Unions, the law - and policy
Trade Unions and the DDA
Ever since the coming into force of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, unions have been explicitly covered by the law. There is a Code of Practice for trade associations that covers unions. Since the beginning, it has been illegal for unions as employers to discriminate against disabled people. It has also been illegal for unions to discriminate against disabled members in the services that they provide - whether that be access to meetings or training, support from officials, or the right to take up any benefits offered to the membership generally.
The TUC has offered advice to unions on meeting these obligations, and the TUC Equality Audit (2007) indicated that most unions have adopted equality policies covering disability. The audit did not however ask about the basis of these policies. It is not clear, therefore, how many unions have agreed to take on commitments that go beyond their legal obligation not to discriminate. It is not known how many unions have consciously decided to include a commitment to using the social model of disability as opposed to simply complying with the DDA.
Moreover, at the time of the Audit, only 35% of unions collected statistics on their disabled members (as compared to 42% collecting information on race and 85% on gender). While monitoring disabled members is only the first step in providing information to help ensure that a union is (at a minimum) complying with its legal obligations, without such monitoring it may be considerably more difficult to identify potential problems. Overall, the results of the Audit suggested that more needs to be done to encourage all unions to achieve a high standard of support for disabled members and potential members.
TUC policy on disability
The TUC Disability Conference was established on the same basis as the other TUC Equality Conferences in 2001 and has since then established policy on a wide range of issues. These policies have ranged from those directly affecting disabled people in the workplace, to the much broader policy debate taking place within Government and society. The policies adopted by the Conference have been endorsed by the TUC and have become TUC policies. Time and again, the importance of adopting the model of disability favoured by the disability movement has been aired in debate and included in policy motions, and TUC advice and campaigning has consistently followed this path by adopting a social model approach. At the 2007 TUC Disability Conference, the TUC was specifically asked to seek to establish a consistent approach across the trade union movement of support for the social model, training to ensure that staff and representatives understood this approach, reviews of union publications (etc.) to make sure that the correct terminology and ideas were used, and an insistence that support for the social model was required before support was given to other disability organisations.
This paper outlines why the social model matters, what it may involve, and what unions might do in pursuing these recommendations.
2. Models, and why they matter
UK law on disability is founded in a medical model of disability, although repeated improvements to the legislation have extended its scope enormously, and introduced various elements of a social model approach into aspects of its practical application. Nonetheless, the DDA states that to be protected against discrimination on the grounds of disability, people must meet a set of criteria based directly on what they cannot do, by comparison with a non-disabled person. If they meet those criteria, then the law requires employers and service providers to consider making 'reasonable adjustments' to enable them to work or access the service. The focus is what the disabled person cannot do and how others can act to overcome the effect of the person's impairments. Cases frequently begin with an employer arguing that the complainant is not disabled enough to qualify for protection, and the person facing the discrimination has to demonstrate what they cannot do. Having proved this, they then usually have to show that an adjustment the employer could have made would have been a reasonable step for them to take.
The social model approach changes the focus to the barrier that, in combination with someone's impairment, prevents the disabled person obtaining the same access as other people to the employment or service. The social model asks what can be done to remove the barriers to inclusion. In this approach, the disability is caused by the barrier, not the impairment. If the law were to be based on this model, as the TUC and the (former) Disability Rights Commission had argued in the debates preceding the Government's preparation of a new single equality law, then the obligation would fall on employers and service providers to ensure that they were not excluding anyone by a failure to remove barriers. Unfortunately, this approach is not going to be adopted in the new legislation, but that is not a reason for organisations to remain with the medical model approach. The TUC will continue to campaign for a social model approach to be adopted in future legislation.
In line with the Government's own social inclusion agenda, the challenge is posed to society to bring down the barriers that mean that disproportionate numbers of disabled people live in poverty, fail to obtain work despite being willing and able to work, and are socially excluded. Despite ten years of exhortation and continued improvements to the DDA, the bleak overall picture has improved only a little, according to Government statistics.
The medical model underlying the DDA has a long history. For a long period, disability was thought by almost everyone to signify an inability to live a 'normal life'. Disabled people were seen as either the pathetic and helpless objects of charity, or else, if they managed despite everything to succeed in their careers and lives, as heroic figures overcoming their 'defects' (not, note, the barriers) by superhuman effort. Well-meaning celebrities and philanthropists appointed themselves the spokespersons and experts on disability, despite being non-disabled themselves, and the focus was on street corner collections to fund the (non-disabled-led) charities, and separate institutions to care for (lock away) the most disabled. Although much has improved since disabled people began to challenge this picture and demanded the right to speak for themselves, and there have been major changes in many of the large charitable organisations, the medical/charity model continues to dominate popular awareness and the media continues to promote this image relentlessly. Non-disabled people might assuage their consciences by making a donation to a good cause, but nothing changes for disabled people as a whole when this approach dominates thinking.
The social model recognises the vital point that the barriers that currently exclude disabled people are not only the obvious physical obstacles (such as steps for a wheelchair user, or the absence of an induction loop for someone with a hearing impairment), but also the attitude that accompanies the medical model. There is a deep-rooted social and cultural majority consensus based on the medical model, and these attitudes maintain and condone continued inequality. The social model turns the traditional approach on its head. It represents the understanding needed to bring about the fundamental social change necessary to end the exclusion of disabled people.
This is not a merely theoretical distinction, but has vitally important consequences for approach, attitudes and policy. The social model approach, for example, could have a practical and immediate impact in that every public body is now under an obligation to promote disability equality and eliminate discrimination (as a result of measures in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005). The TUC advice on this (Promoting Disability Equality, June 2006, available from the TUC website) highlighted the connection between adopting a social model approach and using the new legal Duty to best advantage. Central to the thinking behind the Duty are (i) a pro-active approach to the removal of barriers denying access (both physical and attitudinal) to disabled people, and (ii) the active involvement of disabled people themselves in the preparation of the plans to implement the Duty. It is too soon to judge how effective these obligations on public bodies will be in changing public attitudes and culture.
Nonetheless, the continued domination of the medical model in the media and in popular attitudes inevitably means that this traditional approach creeps into some union activities and views as well from time to time.
Trade unions have played an important part in promoting an inclusive agenda and in putting into practice the right of disabled people to decide on their objectives and priorities, not to have these imposed by non-disabled people. The TUC recommends that unions also need to ensure that in both their internal functioning and their external actions, they apply consistently the social model approach.
The TUC Disability Conference has asked unions to undertake an audit of their practice to ensure that the trade union movement can proudly affirm that it does for itself what it calls on others to do.
3. Steps towards a consistent Social Model practice
Most unions have undertaken significant steps to ensure that they are providing no less a service for their disabled members than for any other members. Some have established strong internal structures with the required support to ensure that their disabled members have an effective voice. Smaller unions may not have been able to find the resources to go so far. But all unions will have the resources to consider taking some of the following steps.
Formal Adoption of the Social Model
It would be a good starting point for the Union to ensure that it enshrines in its own rules, or adopts as policy, that it uses the Social Model of disability and that it expects all its employees and representatives to follow it.
Training of staff and representatives
It may be necessary to accompany such a step with the provision of training to ensure that staff and representatives understand what the Social Model means. Logically, such training can be combined with training in the practical steps that union representatives need to know about to ensure that they are providing effective representation to disabled members, or negotiating appropriate policies and procedures with employers. Many unions already provide disability training. If so, it is suggested that this is reviewed to ensure that the training provider is working in a social model framework.
Much trade union education is provided by recognised trade union tutors (such as the very successful Disability Champions project). Where unions are buying in training from sources outside the movement, the TUC recommends, in keeping with the spirit of the social model, that this is provided where possible by disabled people themselves, and that it be Disability Equality training rather than Disability Awareness training. Both types will explain the legal obligations, but whereas the former is rooted in the social model and promotes an inclusive understanding of disability equality, the latter - and it can be of variable content and quality - sometimes reproduces and reinforces a medical model approach.
Involving disabled members
Alongside these measures, it is strongly recommended that unions that do not yet have structures through which to involve disabled members give consideration to establishing them. The disability movement long ago adopted the principle of 'nothing about us without us' and the same should apply in a trade union setting. Such a body can be asked for its views and recommendations on all and any disability issue, subject of course to each union's rules, and can play, if involved, a constructive part in improving the organisation's policies and practices. By the same process, disabled members will become involved and engaged with the union.
Reviewing policies and practices
A disabled members' structure could be involved in a review of the union's policies, practices, publications and activities to check that these are free of medical model approaches to disability. It will be important for this exercise to take place, insofar as it leads to a consistent application of the national policy of the union. In the process, understanding of why the exercise is taking place can be improved and spread across the union.
Examples of what might need to be reviewed could include:
The language used in union literature and websites. It is important that the terminology is a reflection of the union's understanding of disability. Medical model terminology sends out the wrong signal and can additionally be highly offensive to disabled people. There are a number of guides available (including one from the NUJ) that explain what is appropriate terminology;
The language used in materials produced for the recruitment and employment of the union's paid staff;
The approach to, and images of, disability in union journals and publications;
How monitoring of the membership and staff is carried out. If the union monitors for disability, it may be necessary to change the wording of the question asked. Questions asking about people's impairments would need to be replaced by questions asking members to self-define. If the union does not currently monitor the membership for disability, it may wish to begin doing so, adopting a social model approach. Advice on monitoring disability and the social model approach is given in the TUC publication Disability and Work.
Support given to, or received from, outside organisations. It may be necessary to enquire of disability organisations in receipt of donations, or advertising, or which place advertisements in union publications, whether they subscribe to the social model, and make it clear that the union will not continue to support (or offer space to) organisations that do not. In this way, the union can avoid inadvertently offending against disability equality principles or offending members who might be angry that support is being provided for an organisation the practices of which may be incompatible with disability equality. It may also add to the pressure to change for the better the practices and policies of disability charities (for example).
Necessarily, to carry out a programme of review (and if necessary, change) will call for a decision at the highest levels to give sufficient priority to this work. The most important step will be to take the social model thoroughly on board, if it is not already, and to deploy it as the underpinning for making whatever changes are found to be required.
4. The benefits
At a time of increasing focus by Government on tackling the exclusion of disabled people from work, a review to ensure a consistent social model approach will assist unions to become more aware of disability issues, to adopt a more effective negotiating stance with employers, and to become more attractive to disabled members and potential members.
It will encourage the greater engagement of disabled members with the union.
Such an approach, properly carried through, should also improve the quality of the service provided to disabled members by union representatives, and reduce the risk of falling foul of the DDA through a failure to provide a proper service[1].
Conclusion
The TUC Disability Conference and the TUC Disability Committee have invited unions to strengthen their commitment to disability equality by checking that they do not, by accident or omission, fall below the high standards needed to maintain the position trade unions are rightly claiming as leaders of disability equality.
[1] A number of trade unions nationally have signed up to the Charter of the Trade Union Disability Alliance. This offers a detailed list of commitments covering the same areas as are mentioned in this document. See this at www.tuda.org.uk/charter.htm.
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