This plan was agreed unanimously by the Disabled Members’ Advisory Committee meeting, 28 January 2019, and will be considered by the union's National Executive in March.
‘Know Your Rights’ Campaign
We would like to run a campaign to advise disabled transport workers of their rights. This will encourage recruitment and active involvement in the union, and would include:
- a credit-card-sized ‘know your rights’ card, and a poster drawing attention to the card (already designed by LT region reps)
- each region running a week of workplace visits with this material, talking with members and non-members, and/or open days or other events
- social media activity
We ask the union to fund the production of the cards and posters; produce a professional version of our short ‘Disabled workers – know your rights’ video, and distribute the cards with RMT News.
Supporting RMT campaigns and strikes on issues relevant to disabled people
We would like to:
- run the @DP4guards Twitter account
- hold a ‘Disabled People for Guards’ protest on an appropriate date
- hold a ‘Disabled People say Keep London Overground ticket offices open’ protest on an appropriate date
- hold similar protests on similar issues that might arise during the year
- host a fringe meeting on the fight for accessible transport at TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference
- run a stall at TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference (perhaps jointly with DPAC?)
- invite disabled members to suggest designs for ‘Disabled People for Guards’, ‘Disabled People say Keep London Overground ticket offices open’, ‘Disabled People say Staff Our Stations’ logos
- identify further transport issues that affect disabled people, as both passengers and workers, eg. the sensory environment, accessible toilets, DPPP, train preparation, and more
We ask the union to fund:
- T-shirts, placards, flags and stickers with these logos
- the TUC DWC fringe meeting and stall
Explaining Disability to Members
Each month, we will write an article for RMT News profiling a disabled member (over the year, covering a range of impairments/conditions, jobs and locations). Using a ‘social model’ approach, these articles will focus on the barriers presented by the workplace and wider society to the member and how the union has helped to challenge them.
Promoting Training
We would like to receive training ourselves, and to help the union to extend its training on disability-related issues more widely to reps and members, including courses run in regions, and disability-related ‘bitesize’ courses.
Building DMAC and Involving Branches and Regions
We would like DMAC members to visit branches and regional councils to speak about issues facing members and the role of DMAC, encouraging them to get involved in our activities, to nominate disabled members for any remaining vacancies on the Committee, and to create (and fill!) the post of Disability Officer.
We would like the union to fund any expenses incurred that branches and regional councils are unable to meet.
Disabled Workers’ Charter
We want to develop a charter of demands for access, rights and equality for disabled transport workers, and already plan to work on this at our conference in April.
We ask the union to publish the charter in a similar format to others eg. the Women’s Charter.
Mental Health
It is now over a year since the Committee agreed a detailed set of proposals to work on the issue of mental health. We would now like to carry these out.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) funding cuts
We would like to:
- write an article for RMT News
- at an appropriate time, contact all members asking them to contact their MP about this issue
- take part in demonstrations against the cuts
Volunteers
We would like to campaign against discrimination against disabled volunteers, for example Severn Valley Railway’s policy of not allowing autistic people to volunteer.
We will review this plan at each meeting, and add to it should issues arise during the year.
Note: These proposals for the committee’s activities are in addition to existing decisions arising from previous resolutions.
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