Barnet UNISON: Branch Secretary Weekly Message 2 November 2026

Monday 2 November 2026

 

Weekly Blog — speaking truth to power – Support for Disabled Members. 

We’ve seen a real rise in casework supporting disabled members over the past while, across schools, care settings, depots and council offices. Some of that is members coming to us once things have already gone wrong. I’d rather hear from you earlier than that. So this week’s blog is a straightforward message: if you’re a disabled member, or living with a long-term health condition, we’re ready to help, and you don’t need a crisis to pick up the phone.

 

What we can actually help with

A lot of the casework we see starts with sickness absence. The Council’s own policy says that where someone has an underlying health condition or disability, the usual absence review points don’t have to apply in the same rigid way. In practice that only happens if someone pushes for it. We do that pushing.

 

We also deal regularly with reasonable adjustments, whether that’s changes to your hours, your equipment, your workstation, or how a task is structured. The duty to make those adjustments sits with the employer, not with you to just cope. If a request has gone quiet, or you’ve been told something isn’t possible without much explanation why, that’s exactly the kind of thing we can chase.

 

Where health affects someone’s ability to do their current role, there are routes for temporary or permanent redeployment, with pay protection built in for a temporary move. And where absence management, performance management or a disciplinary process is running alongside a health condition, we make sure that connection isn’t ignored or brushed past.

 

You know your situation. We know the process.

Nobody expects you to be an expert in the Equality Act or the Council’s Managing Absence Policy on top of managing your own health. That’s our job. What we need from you is to hear about it, ideally before a formal meeting gets scheduled rather than the night before it.

If you’re waiting on an adjustment that’s gone quiet, worried about a return to work meeting, or feel like your health isn’t being properly factored into a process you’re going through, get in touch. You’re entitled to bring a rep into any of these meetings, and it costs you nothing to ask one of us to come along, even if you’re not sure yet whether anything’s actually gone wrong.

 

This isn’t only for members with a visible or long-standing condition either. Long-term conditions, mental health, and anything covered under the Equality Act all count. If you’re not sure whether your situation qualifies for support, ask us rather than deciding on your own that it probably doesn’t.

 

Contact your steward or the branch office whenever suits you. We’d rather have the conversation early and it turn out you didn’t need us, than have it too late.

 

Best wishes John Burgess Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON