Today marks the start of Disability History Month, with the theme this year focusing on leadership, resistance and culture. For the FDA, this is a great opportunity for us to consider the impact we’re having on behalf of our members.
We’re really keen to increase the work we’re doing to support disabled members at work, whether that’s supporting prosecutors in the Crown Prosecution Service or policy experts working across government. In order to make sure we’re able to use our resources in the most effective way, we are launching a survey for all our members with a disability, impairment or health condition to tell us what they want from their union.
The survey will be live until the end of Disability History Month on 22 December, and is open to those who identify as disabled under the Disability Act. Please take the time to share your thoughts with us: your views and experiences will shape the FDA’s work in this area.
Take part in our survey.
We’ll report back to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee before developing an action plan so that we can ensure we’re proactively driving this agenda.
We’re also supporting the TUC’s calls for the government to make it compulsory for employers to publish their disability pay gaps, similar to the obligations around gender pay gap reporting. The disability pay gap currently sits on average at 15.5%, which effectively means disabled workers across the UK are working 57 days a year for free.
You can support the TUC’s campaign by signing their petition.
After comparing the results of our recent carers’ survey with our findings from 2020, Amelia Dowler shares the positives as well as the FDA’s recommendations to help carers within their civil service careers.
An FDA delegation attended this year’s TUC LGBT+ Workers’ Conference in Brighton.
To mark Carers Week, the FDA have published a new report, Changing Perceptions: Helping carers in the civil service reach their potential, which uses the experiences of our members with caring responsibilities to understand the working lives of carers in the civil service and highlight the barriers they face.
