Earlier this year, NAS campaigner David Nicholson had a very positive meeting with Terry Anderson from the Scottish Trade Union Congress. Here's what he had to say about it:
This summer, I was accompanied by Robert MacBean, the NAS
Policy and Parliamentary Officer in Scotland,
to a meeting with Terry Anderson from the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) in
Edinburgh.
The meeting came about after I did a dissertation on the
issue of autism and employment. The research
looked at possible ways of how we could get more people with autism into
employment and retain that employment. One of these ways was getting the trade
union movement involved in helping get people with autism into the workplace.
Therefore it was decided that meeting someone from the STUC would be the best
way to seeing what, if anything, the trade union movement could do to help and
if there were anything that they were doing presently which was helping people
with autism get into work.
Terry was keen to listen to the points that Robert and
myself put across on the issue under discussion. I emphasised the fact that
only 15% of people with Autism were in any kind of employment, either full-time
or part-time. I was also keen to stress to Terry that people with Autism often
faced bullying within the workplace from fellow colleagues as well as the
employers themselves. I stressed that this was down to a lack of awareness of
the condition and that perhaps there could be a role for the trade unions in
helping ensure that employers and employees were made aware of autism.
Terry understood my concern and highlighted that employees
within the workplace could get support or assistance from the union if they
were getting bullied by fellow workers or their bosses. If they weren’t in a
union, then what happened was that they could phone up for assistance but this
only lasted for a period of a year or so before that helped ceased. If the
employee wanted to receive further help after that period then they had to join
the relevant union for example Unite, GMB or Unison amongst others.
Terry also said that he was aware of the union helping a few
people with autism out when it came to employment tribunal hearings but I was
glad to hear that these were rare occurances and that often things were settled
before they reached the tribunal stage
Terry made one point which really excited me that perhaps in
order to ensure that the workplace becomes a more autism friendly place that
employees with autism (who were in a union) could become union reps (shop
stewards) so that they could then help fellow employees with autism but to also
help make employees and employers understand autism more. I think this is an
idea which has got potential and I would certainly give serious consideration
to becoming a union rep if I were to find work.
Robert also informed Terry of the on-going campaign being run by the NAS entitled The Undiscovered Workforce and I hope that the STUC can play a role within that campaign. Before the meeting ended Terry stated that there was an STUC Disabled Workers Committee which also held an annual conference and he recommended that this was perhaps another channel that both Robert and myself could explore further.
Overall, it was a very positive meeting and I look forward,
along with Robert, to having further dialogue with the STUC in the near future.
