The influence of trade union Disability Champions on employer disability policy and practice

• Author: Kim Hoque,Nick Bacon
• Date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12060
• Published date: 01 April 2015

The influence of trade union Disability Champions

on employer disability policy and practice

Nick Bacon, Cass Business School, City University London

Kim Hoque, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 25, no 2, 2015, pages 233–249

Disability Champions are a new type of lay workplace trade union activist, whose role is to encourage

employers to audit and improve disability policies and offer independent advice and guidance on

disability issues to employees. Drawing on a survey of the population of Disability Champions, this

article assesses Disability Champion influence on employer disability policy and practice. While the

majority of Disability Champions report having had a positive impact, they report greater influence on

employer willingness to conduct disability audits and to amend and improve employer equal

opportunities practices with regard to disability than employer willingness to make reasonable

adjustments. The analysis also identifies several factors that are likely to be important in improving

Disability Champion effectiveness. Overall, the results suggest Disability Champions have the potential

to enhance the ability of unions to represent disabled people and help manage disability issues within the

workplace. The article makes a theoretical contribution to Disability Champion roles by further

developing the ‘Activity-Support-Characteristic’ framework for the antecedents of new union

representatives’ effectiveness.

Contact: Professor Nick Bacon, Faculty of Management, Cass Business School, City University

London, 106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK. Email: Nick.Bacon.1@city.ac.uk

Keywords: disability; Disability Champions; equal opportunities; trade unions

INTRODUCTION

There is significant evidence pointing to the labour market disadvantage experienced by

disabled people. The 2012 Labour Force Survey estimated the UK employment rate for

the working-age disabled to be 46 per cent compared with 76 per cent for the

working-age non-disabled (Office for Disability Issues, 2013). Disabled people are

overrepresented in low-skilled and low-status jobs (Riddell et al., 2010), are paid almost a

pound an hour less than the non-disabled (Riddell et al., 2010), have poorer access to career

progression and training opportunities and are more likely to work in jobs for which they are

overqualified (Meager and Higgins, 2011).

At the same time, however, there remains a continued paucity of employer HR practices

aimed at managing disability, despite initial hopes that the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act

(DDA) would engender positive change (Bruyère and James, 1997: 5). As demonstrated by the

2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, almost a decade after the DDA only 23 per cent

of workplaces monitored recruitment and selection and 9 per cent monitored promotions by

disability, while only 19 per cent reviewed recruitment and selection procedures, 10 per cent

reviewed promotion procedures and 4 per cent reviewed relative pay rates by disability

(Kersley et al., 2006: 241–2, 248). In addition, employers often fail to make inexpensive

adjustments to keep disabled people in work, and disabled people often remain reluctant to

disclose their disability and request adjustments for fear of discrimination (Williams et al., 2008).

bs_bs_banner

doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12060

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 2, 2015 233

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Bacon, N. and Hoque, K. (2015) ‘The influence of trade union Disability Champions on employer disability policy

and practice’. Human Resource Management Journal 25: 2, 233–249.

In light of these apparent shortcomings in disability practice, it should perhaps be viewed

as positive that trade unions have recently demonstrated greater willingness to support

disabled people within the workplace. Although union approaches to disability have been

typified historically by what Humphrey (1998: 588) describes as ‘a political and cultural

forgetfulness’, in recent years unions have placed greater emphasis on representing disabled

people, having identified and initiated claims under the DDA (TUC, 2011), represented workers

with mental health problems (TUC, 2008), tackled disability discrimination in sickness absence

procedures (TUC, 2013a) and campaigned to protect the Public Sector Equality Duty (TUC,

2013b). This might be deemed important in light of Dickens’ (1999) three-pronged approach,

within which the joint regulation of employer equality policy via union representation is

viewed as one of three prongs for promoting equality, alongside unilateral employer action and

legal regulation.

A further important recent union initiative regarding disability has been the establishment

of the union Disability Champion role. Disability Champions are a new type of lay workplace

union activist, whose role, after undertaking a 5-day Trades Union Congress-sponsored training

course, is to offer independent advice and guidance on disability issues to employees and

encourage employers to audit and improve disability policies. Department of Trade and

Industry funding in 2003 helped recruit and train the first Disability Champions. There are now

more than 500 Disability Champions in place, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission

(EHRC) (2012: 47) claims they provide an important vehicle by which unions can develop

specialist disability expertise to support disabled people and their employers. They may well,

therefore, provide an important mechanism by which the joint regulation element of Dickens’

(1999) three-pronged approach can be given substance for disabled people.

No research has been conducted to date, however, into the impact of Disability Champions

in terms of engendering workplace-level improvements. As such, this article has two aims. The

first is to assess how effective Disability Champions have been in encouraging employers to

amend and improve disability policy and practice. The second is to assess the factors associated

with Disability Champion reports of their effectiveness. The findings have the potential to

inform both theoretical and practical understanding of the potential for Disability Champions

(and the joint regulation element of Dickens’ (1999) three-pronged approach more broadly) to

promote greater disability equality.

UNIONS, DISABILITY CHAMPIONS AND EMPLOYER DISABILITY POLICY AND PRACTICE

With regard to the article’s first aim (to assess the effectiveness of Disability Champions in

encouraging employers to amend and improve disability policy and practice), a useful

theoretical starting point is Freeman and Medoff’s (1984) collective voice/institutional response

model. According to this model, positive union effects may result where unions providea direct

voice channel. This might, as suggested by Dickens (1999), involve formal negotiation and

equality bargaining. However, it might also involve informal dialogue with managers in which

disabled members’ concerns are brought to the attention of management, who may then

respond by improving disability policies (Schurman et al., 1998; Labropoulou and Soumeli,

2001; ILO, 2009). One might expect Disability Champions to amplify such voice effects given

their specific focus and expertise in representing disabled employees. Also important might be

whether this dialogue is formalised via Disability Champion participation on equality or

disability committees. Such committees typically oversee initiatives and monitor progress on

equality issues (Kalev et al., 2006: 593) and scrutinise managers’ compliance with requests for

reasonable adjustments, often suggesting a broader range of adjustments than may otherwise

Employer disability policy and practice in Britain

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 2, 2015234

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.