Gender, occupational safety and health
The menopause, ill-fitting Protective Personal Equipment, ‘just banter’…
More than 60 Health and Safety representatives from several different Trade Unions attended a Health and Safety Forum event last month in Newcastle.
In her introduction, Beth Farhat, the TUC’s Regional Secretary, said the day’s event was one in a series organised by the Forum in response to requests from workplace health and safety reps.
Past forums have covered topics such as asbestos in public buildings, mental health awareness, and the impact of the Trade Union Bill on health and safety.
Farhat was delighted to welcome an all-women panel of speakers: Sue Ferns, Deputy General Secretary, Prospect; Julie Cook, National Officer for Wales TUC; and Scarlet Harris, the TUC’s Women’s Equality Officer.
First up was Sue Ferns, Deputy General Secretary of Prospect, a trade union which represents engineers, managers, scientists and other specialists in both the public and private sectors.
In May 2016, Prospect, the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) and Women into Science and Engineering (WISE), the TUC and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Support Network undertook a survey to review the women’s experience of wearing Protective Personal Equipment (PPE).
The results of the survey ‘Women’s Personal Protective Equipment: One size does not fit all’ showed that while users appear to think that some items of Protective Personal Equipment have improved in the last seven years, progress is far too slow.
The survey was conducted on-line and received 3086 responses, 54 per cent of which were from union members.
The survey also looked at employer responsibility for Protective Personal Equipment, including cleaning, maintenance and storage; and whether it was a good fit, and if it was designed for women.
The survey also asked what would make it better.
It was also recognised that men also complained about their experiences of Protective Personal Equipment and that any improvements in addressing common issues would benefit everyone.
Reps then shared their experiences of Protective Personal Equipment and agreed that this should be part of any negotiating agenda and that decision-makers needed to be held to account.
The next contribution came from Julie Cook, National Officer for Wales TUC.
She spoke about the work the Wales TUC are doing around the menopause and work.
Through consultation with reps it was discovered that workplaces were not tackling certain issues in a way that helped workers.
Wales TUC wanted to investigate further how Welsh employers are responding to this particular issue and what the experiences of women in the workplace are.
They developed a short survey, the questions designed to be direct and difficult to misinterpret.
The findings of the survey, ‘Menopause interim report’, were available on the day and also here.
While it is recognised the report and findings relate to participants from Wales it has raised a number of issues which will relate to women outside of Wales.
And Julie Cook said that the Wales TUC is more than happy to share findings in order to achieve a positive difference to workplaces outside of Wales.
A number of union reps, including some from UNISON, the public service unions, and theNational Union of Teachers (NUT) said that menopause is included in their workplace health policies. Cook said she would welcome any supporting information unions could send to help inform their research.
The final contribution came from Scarlet Harris, the TUC’s Women’s Equality Officer.
She spoke about the research the TUC undertook in collaboration with the Everyday Sexism Project in response to the paucity of up-to-date, quantitative data on sexual harassment in the workplace.
Although many reps deal with sexual harassment cases on a day to day basis, unions and women’s organisations are in no doubt that sexual harassment remains as widespread a problem as ever, and there has been little in the way of empirical data to quantify the problem.
At the beginning of this year the TUC commissioned a YouGov poll of 1,533 women who were in work or who had been in work at some point in their lives.
The findings from the survey is outlined in the report ‘Still just a bit of banter? Sexual harassment in the workplace 2016′.
The report explores both nature and the scope of the problem and shines a light on an issue which is too often overlooked and underestimated.
The report includes a series of recommendations.
First of all, government needs to do more: abolish employment tribunal fees; reinstate third party harassment legislation; reinstate employment tribunal powers to make wider recommendation; reinstate the Statutory Equality Questionnaire; recognise and facilitate time for union equality reps; and extend full range of statutory employment rights to all workers, regardless of employment status or type of contract.
Employers need to do more too: provide decent jobs, training, clear policies and then implement and enforce policies.
And finally, unions can do more in the way of providing and improving raining, workplace campaigns, and whennegotiating workplace policies.
One of the key findings from the research was that only 1 per cent of those who experienced sexual harassment reported it to their union.
Unions need to make it clear to all members that sexual harassment is union business and that unions take a zero tolerance approach.
Resources the TUC have already produced include a ‘Know your rights’ leaflet and ‘Tackling sexual harassment in the workplace – A TUC guide for trade union activists’.
An eNote and webinar is also being developed.
The Everyday Sexism Project is also developing a new website which will direct people to the TUC website for further information about joining a union.
Rounding up, Beth Farhat drew attention to the ‘Women and Leadership’ course the Northern TUC Women’s Group had organised in conjunction with Trade Union Education and made reference to the ‘Asbestos Support and Campaign Group’s Fourth Year Annual report which was available for delegates to take away.