June, 2011
Archive for June, 2011
C&E consultation backs discrimination law
At the end of last year, Commerce and Employment published a public consultation on Employment Law.
Under the current Guernsey law, only sex discrimination can be used as specific grounds for taking an employer to an employment tribunal – not age, race, religion or disability. Plus there’s no right to redundancy pay here, it’s at the employer’s discretion.
The Department wanted to know whether more employment law was needed in Guernsey and, if yes, what should they focus on as the priority. Guernsey Disability Alliance members were among the 108 contributors to the consultation.
The results have just been released and the order of priority for new employment law in C&E’s 2012 Business Plan will be:
1. Disability Discrimination in employment
2. Age Discrimination in employment
3. Racial Discrimination in employment
4. Statutory Right to Redundancy Pay
5. Statutory Right to Paid leave
This is a very positive result for disabled islanders, particularly for those trying to get a job. There is some limited employment protection at the moment as a result of the general law regarding unfair dismissal. But this only applies once you have been in post for one year so can’t be used to challenge employers whose initial recruitment process isn’t fair.
Of course, we have to remember there’s still a long, long way to go from here. Work won’t start on the new law till 2012 at the earliest and there is no saying how long it will take to draft or whether the States will vote it through. But nevertheless, getting it so high up on C&E’s agenda is a big step forward. And that definitely wouldn’t have happened without GDA input – the consultation document itself was pretty lukewarm about the need for disability discrimination law and the Chamber of Commerce made it clear that businesses don’t want it.
A great reminder of why our “joining together to speak with one voice” is worth all the effort. Thank you to C&E for listening.
Waitrose listens to Gina
Photo of Gina courtesy of The Guernsey Press Co Ltd
Following a request from GDA member Gina Johnson, Waitrose has teamed up with St John’s to provide a mobility scooter in both their Admiral Park and Rohais stores.
Gina has her own scooter but can’t always take it to the store with her. Waitrose are keen to provide an accessible shopping environment for all their customers and had offered to assist her in a wheelchair but that meant she couldn’t shop at her own pace as she used to when Admiral Park was owned by Checkers.
On using the new scooter for the first time, Gina said “It’s a huge store so it was absolutely great to be able to get around on my own. The aisles have plenty of room for me to move around. I have emailed Waitrose to say thank you for listening to my comments.”
Gina’s campaign sparked a big debate on the This Is Guernsey website. This gave a fascinating insight into the views of islanders on the subject of disabled people’s independence and you can read it here.
Extra care housing proposals survive
Last week GDA members watched from the gallery, or tuned in from home, for a long, intense and acrimonious States debate on proposals to develop Extra Care Housing on the site of the Longue Rue and Maison Maritaine residential homes. The proposition to throw out the plans until more work had been done on the funding model was eventually defeated by 30 votes to 15, after over six hours of robust exchanges.
The success of the proposals was important to disabled islanders for two reasons:
1. The new buildings will be fully accessible – the current buildings have narrow doorways and small toilets with insufficient space for carers.
2. Longue Rue will include 15 flats for younger disabled people. Specialist housing of this type is in very short supply in Guernsey. Places like Rosaire Court are only for the over-55s whereas someone can develop MS or lose their sight much younger than that. Younger disabled people can end up with no choice but to live in an older people’s residential home, which is not age-appropriate and restricts their independence.
Initially the younger people’s flats will be reserved for people with a learning disability who are already living in HSSD housing. However, future developments will be open to all disabled people, whether their impairment is physical, sensory or psychological.
The next step is for Treasury Minister, Charles Parkinson, to bring the warring Housing, HSSD and SSD departments together in a working party to develop the full business case for the proposals. Then the plans have to go to Environment for planning permission.
The buildings won’t be declared officially open for at least three years but, nevertheless, this is an important advance in social care for Guernsey.