Trade unions as employment facilitators for disabled employees: The case of the UK's Transport Salaried Staffs' Association Neurodiversity project
The paper contributes to debates on trade unions as employment facilitators for disabled employees, as well as adding to current knowledge of and insights to trade union disability practices. This is achieved through an analysis of a government funded trade union project designed to facilitate employment for neurologically impaired employees working in the UK transport industry. Little attention has been given in the HRM literature to an analysis of trade unions as facilitators for disabled employees, especially in the case of employees impaired by dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, ADHD and Asperger syndrome. Using primary data gathered from a range of trade union stakeholders, the paper provides in-depth insights into trade unions involvement in disability practices. The main findings suggest trade unions, even in times of declining memberships, ongoing employer resistance and government intervention in employment relations, retain a capacity to provide both traditional/collective and specialised/individualised employment facilitation for disabled employees. However, this capacity is threatened by the likely withdrawal of important government funding for projects that can play a critical role in the facilitation of employment for disabled employees.
1. Introduction
Research suggests disabled employees have more negative experiences of employment than non-disabled employees (Fevre, Robinson, Lewis and Jones 2013; Jones 2013). Disability continues to be viewed in organisations as an individual problem requiring individualistic interventions (Foster 2007). In addition, disabled employees are disproportionately affected by the growth of emotional labour in service organisations (Wilton 2008) and often grow to accept medical and neo-liberal discourses surrounding disability, which can lead to disabled employees seeing themselves as unable to compete and to take part in society as full-worthy and active citizens (Holmqvist, Maravelias and Skålén 2012). However, research also points towards improved employment prospects for disabled employees (Jones and Wass 2013), with recent disability legislation having a positive impact on HRM practices (Woodhams and Corby 2007) and disabled employees more involved in activism surrounding employment issues (Schur 2003). Within this context, disabled employees are more likely than non-disabled employees to be members of a trade union (Jones 2013). Further, trade unions represent a key source of information for disabled employees (Schur 2003). As such, given the often negative employment experiences of disabled employees, and the already key role of trade unions, further research is needed to understand how trade unions can support disabled members and facilitate positive employment experiences.
Individualistic approaches to employment facilitation appear to dominate the fields giving most attention to such matters. Indeed, medical and disability literature concentrates on individual approaches to employment facilitation, involving self-advocacy (Meyer 2001), self-efficacy (Munir, Randall, Yarker and Nielsen 2009), HRM/occupational health professionals (Coole, Radford, Grant and Terry 2012), line managers (Haafkens, Kopnina, Meerman and van Dijk 2011) and external specialist campaign organisations (Nesbitt 2000). Yet it is trade union, or collective facilitation practices, that attract most attention in the HRM literature (e.g. Schur 2003; Moore and Wright 2012). While it is questioned whether trade unions are structurally compatible with the interests of disabled members (Humphrey, 1998), more recent research suggests trade unions have been successful at getting disability issues on to wider organisational agendas (Bennett 2010; Foster and Fosh 2010). However, the extent to which trade unions are able to collectively represent disabled employees whose needs are varied remains unclear.
Even though trade unions are the most commonly cited employment facilitators for disabled employees in the HRM literature, such literature is scarce and often subsumes disability into broader equality and diversity agendas. The contribution of this paper, however, is to add to current knowledge of and insights to trade union disability practices and in doing so contribute to current debates on trade unions as employment facilitators for disabled employees.
This paper presents an analysis of a government funded trade union project, namely the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association's (TSSA) Neurodiversity project, established to facilitate employment for neurologically impaired employees. The paper is organised as follows. Firstly, a review of literature on recent trade union modernisation initiatives, trade unions and disability practices and neurological conditions and neurodiversity, is presented. The second section describes and discusses the methodological approach adopted for the current research, namely focus groups and interviews with key stakeholders within the Neurodiversity project. The third section provides an overview of the case, that of the TSSA and the Neurodiversity project. This leads to an analysis of the findings, identifying key benefits of trade unions involvement in traditional and specialised disability practices, as well as identifying the realities of such ventures. The final section is a discussion of the findings and the contribution of the paper, how even in times of continued trade union decline, trade unions can make a unique and positive difference to the working lives of an historically neglected disability group.
2. Trade unions, disability and neurodiversity
2.1 Trade union modernisation and disability
Understanding the trade union disability practices that form of focus of the current research requires a discussion concerning recent government attempts to "modernise" the UK trade union movement. The UK trade union modernisation agenda relates to the creation of the Union Learning Fund (ULF), which began in 1998 and has paid out in excess of £100m to trade unions since its inception (Stuart, Cook, Cutter and Winterton 2011). The aim of the ULF is to support unions in encouraging learning by workers and to support workers who wish to learn more through work (Findlay and Warhurst 2011). However, the future of the ULF is currently in doubt, especially if the UK elects a majority Conservative Party government at the May 2015 general election. The modernisation agenda also relates to the Union Modernisation Fund (UMF), which ran from 2005 to 2010, and provided trade unions with a further £7.2m of funding to 'support innovative projects to help speed unions’ adaptation to changing labour market conditions' (Stuart, Martínez Lucio and Charlwood 2009, p. 25). The modernisation agenda is key to the current research, in that the trade union in question has built their Neurodiversity project on funding from both initiatives.
The trade union modernisation agenda is said to have come with a range of significant benefits. While a range of research related to the ULF and UMF focus on trade union revitalisation (e.g. Findlay and Warhurst 2011; Heyes and Rainbird 2011), a further crop of research points towards the benefits of such initiatives to vulnerable groups. Such initiatives are said to bring broad benefits, including enhancing trade union relevance in the contemporary workplace (Forrester 2004) and providing trade unions with 'new tools to win old arguments' (Heyes and Rainbird 2011). The initiatives are also said to bring more specific benefits for vulnerable employees, including the creation of opportunities for trade unions to form alliances with new actors in employment relations (Mustchin 2014). In addition, such projects allow trade union representatives to take on roles that no one in the HR department does (Cassell and Lee 2007), as well as create important 'safe havens' for members (Cassell and Lee 2009). Taken together, it appears government initiatives have the potential to make important differences to how trade unions can facilitate employment facilitation for disabled employees.
However, there have been critics of government attempts to modernise the UK trade union movement. Such criticisms, for example, suggest government orchestrated trade union modernisation initiatives are covert attempts by governments to de-collectivise UK employment relations (Stuart, Martínez Lucio and Robinson 2011) and further dilute the historical regulatory functions of trade unions (Ewing 2004), In addition, it has been suggested that such initiatives concern support for short-term agendas that employers are unlikely to seriously engage with (Forrester and Payne 2000), or employer attitudes to such projects is likely to put significant constraints on their outcomes (Wallis, Stuart, and Greenwood 2005). Generally, it has also been suggested trade union modernisation agendas are to the longer-term detriment of the labour movement (McIlroy and Croucher 2013). Such criticisms are of relevance to the current research as the realities of trade union modernisation initiatives are likely to undermine the uniqueness of what trade unions can contribute to employment facilitation for disabled employees, that of politicising the disabled and integrating the concerns of disabled employees into wider organisational agendas (Foster and Fosh 2010).
2.2 Disability and contemporary trade unions
The research related to trade unions as employment facilitators for disabled employees provides similarly mixed accounts of relevance and impact. For instance, disabled employees are more likely to be in a trade union than non-disabled employees (Jones 2013), as such indicating the key role trade unions have for representing disabled employees. Further, trade union membership and recognition exposes disabled employees to information and support networks they are less likely to find in non-unionised workplaces. Moreover, Schur (2003) highlights how unionised disabled employees are more likely to report a case of disability discrimination than non-union disabled employees and the non-employed disabled. Research also indicates trade unions to be proactive in terms of representing disabled employees in the workplace, leading to disabled employees being less passive to poor treatment (Foster and Fosh 2010).
It has been demonstrated that trade unions also directly affect the facilitation of employment for disabled employees. Bennett (2010), for example, found managements to actively seek help on disability practices if a trade union representative with disability expertise is at hand. Bacon and Hoque (as cited in TUC 2010), moreover, found disability practices to be the most common activity of equality representatives. This research indicated equality representatives spend more time on developing disability practices than any other equality practice, have a greater sense of impact on disability practices than other equality practices, spend more time per week on disability practices than other equality practices, and report higher levels of contact with management on disability over any other equality practice.
There are, however, a range of problems noted with trade union involvement in disability practices. For instance, disabled employees may have higher levels of trade union membership than non-disabled employees, yet disabled employees employed by unionised organisations continue to have less than equal promotion, training and pay opportunities (Schur 2003). Research indicates employers are least likely to have a committee or forum for disability practices compared to other equality practices (Bacon and Hoque as cited in TUC 2010). Equality representatives also report a range of problems with disability practices. Moore et al's. (2012), for example, reported on equality representatives having problems dealing with disability discrimination, as disability commonly intersected with other forms of discrimination, such as, age, sexual orientation and gender. A further study by Moore and Wright (2012), moreover, found the notion of equality representatives to be problematic. The key issue is that equality representative activism is based on broad concepts of equality and justice, rather than specific identities or categories, with broad forms of activism negating against specialised forms of self-organisation.
Foster and Fosh (2010) provide a particularly extensive critique of the disability practices of contemporary trade unions. They found the widespread informal nature of disability practices in UK organisations led to an ambiguous status for disability trained trade union representatives. The reality of informality is that disability trained trade union representatives found it difficult to get employers to appreciate the efforts involved in leveraging disability practices on to wider organisational agendas, as well as appreciating the reality of representing disabled employees in individual cases. Foster and Fosh also noted how trade union representatives found disability law difficult to understand and to put into practice. The findings also point to trade union representatives undermining the collective nature of trade unionism campaign by seeking advice on disability law from non-trade union sources, such as voluntary/campaign organisations or government-funded agencies.
2.3 Neurological impairments and neurodiversity
The five neurological impairments (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD and Asperger syndrome) to be covered in the current research are recognised by the UK's Equality Act 2010. The focus on this particular range of neurological impairments relates to the funders of the current research (TSSA and the ULF) and the trade union project that is analysed in this paper. Each is a life-long impairment that has substantial effect on both everyday and working life. It would be unlawful, as such, for a UK employer to deny a dyslexic employee reasonable adjustments based on the impairing qualities of the employee's dyslexia. From a theoretical standpoint this paper draws distinction between impairment and disability. Following the social relational model of disability (Thomas 2004), disability reflects an oppressive social relationship between those designated (or diagnosed) with impairments and those without such impairments. This important theoretical distinction allows for an analysis of the practices and processes which can ‘disable’ employees with impairments. In line with the social model, which also underpins UK legislation (The Disability Discrimination Act and more recently the Equality Act, 2010), this paper refers to disabled employees, rather than employees with disabilities. Doing so recognises that disability does not reside within the individual, rather it is the consequence of the broader environment, including HRM and line management practices.
Each of the five impairments noted above come with unique and common qualities. For instance, dyslexia impairs reading, dyscalculia impairs numeracy, dyspraxia impairs movement, ADHD impairs attention span and concentration, and Asperger syndrome impairs social interaction. Further, common qualities found across such impairments include poor memory and organisation skills. However, it is common for individuals to have co-occurring neurological impairments (Hendrickx 2010), there is overlap between each medical description (Portwood 2000), and all are widely known as "invisible" impairments. It is estimated that nearly 10 per cent of the UK adult population has a neurological impairment (Butterworth and Kovas 2013), indicating a high degree of relevance to HR and diversity management practice.
Neurological impairments have in recent times been related to the emergent concept of neurodiversity. Advocates of neurodiversity challenge the conventional notion of simply seeing dyslexia, for example, as a cognitive impairment (Krcek 2013). Advocates of neurodiversity also tend to subscribe to the social model of disability, which recognises the disabling role of the environment (Carter and Markham 2001). As such, advocates of neurodiversity call for neurological impairments to be conceptualised as part of normal human variation (Paletta 2013), and to be recognised in wider debates about human variation that currently emphasise race and gender (Waltz 2013). A range of criticisms have, however, been aimed at the concept of neurodiversity. For instance, the concept remains widely unrecognised and unknown (Baker 2011). Neurodiversity is also criticised for representing an idealistic take on very real medical problems (Herrera 2013). In addition, it can also run the risk of biological essentialism. However, the term has been adopted as a political organising tool for those with neurological impairments such as Autism (Baker 2011).