Napo National Official Annoesjka Valent reports back from a powerful parliamentary briefing on sexual harassment at work. The event brought together unions, campaigners and survivors to expose the scale of the problem and demand meaningful change. Sexual harassment is not an individual issue — it is a health and safety failure, and it must be treated as such.
An important parliamentary event was organised on 24th November by the Workers’ Policy Project together with Unite the Union and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. Napo is affiliated to the ‘End Not Defend’ campaign of the Workers’ Policy Project.
Introducing the parliamentary briefing to which a good number of MPs were present, was Bob Jeffery – Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam university who gave a presentation on their research and which you can read here in below link with parliamentary briefing.
Joint Briefing – Workplace Sexual Harassment is a Health and Safety Issue – Workers Policy Project
Next speaker, Unite Women’s Officer, reported back on their survey this year in June to 280K women members; they did it broken down by industries such as passenger transport and construction, and what they found quite shocking was that 8% reported being a victim of sexual coercion, for example a manager at a hospital giving preferential shifts as a result.
Chair of Unite Women’s Committee, added to emphasise the need for Equalities’ Reps to also wear a H&S badge, something I think perhaps for Napo branches to consider also and encouraging Branch Equal Rights officers to also do H&S training and specific training around tackling sexual harassment which both the GFTU and TUC offer as online courses.
Suky Bhaker, CEO of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust Suzy Lamplugh Trust, (which is a personal safety charity and leading stalking authority, established in 1986, following the disappearance of 25-year-old Suzy Lamplugh, an estate agent and lone worker who went to meet a client and never returned), informed the meeting that in their 40 years’ existence have had 85K people rang their helpline for advice. She gave the example of Gracy Spinks – link below to an article – who had reported her colleague both to the employer and police for stalking.
Gracie Spinks inquest: Police admit failing woman killed by her stalker – BBC News
Dr Anne Beattie, Vice President Elect of the Hospital Doctors Union, spoke alongside one of their member survivors on their report which you can also find here below.
HCSA report reveals extent of sexual harassment in medicine
Brian, Organiser in Hospitality Sector – Unite Scotland, gave the example of Caitlin Lee who worked in a hotel in Glasgow. Her late shift was overrunning, and she missed her last bus home. She went back to her employer, but they didn’t want to pay for a cab home – this being a big hotel chain – she ended up being sexually assaulted on her way home. It would have only been a £12 cab fayre. Her uniform was taken off her for evidence, and to add insult to injury she was then even forced to pay for her replacement uniform for work also.
As a result, with Caitlin in the lead, Unite launched a ‘Get me Home Safely Campaign’ – with more details below and has resulted in Glasgow Council to ensure workers get home safely after work, with a wider campaign and other councils signing up since then.
Get ME Home Safely | Make Our Communities & Workplaces Safer
Following on, we heard from a speaker from Regularise and undocumented migrants who are even more under threat of sexual harassment especially due to recent immigration regulations. These workers are even more vulnerable and not reporting as a result because of their precarious circumstances, because of a fear of job loss or being reported to immigration services.
Last Napo’s AGM had an emergency resolution passed around foreign nationals and the need to protect all foreign national workers in the country here in employment and to ensure we don’t lose valuable colleagues, so this is also key for us to continue to press on with the employers and support foreign national workers.
Baroness Smith – Plaid Cymru, working as a young woman in parliament touched upon the Employment Rights Bill and Crime & Policing Bill and to give support to the campaign.
A Spokesperson from Hazards Campaign also added to the what the key demands are of the Campaign.
End Not Defend Campaign
That is why Napo are part of the End Not Defend Campaign and more info here at
End Not Defend – Workers Policy Project
The main laws being campaigned for are:
1 Proper oversight and prevention from the Health and Safety Executive so that workplace sexual harassment is dealt with in the same way as stress at work.
2 Safe ways to report workplace sexual harassment that are independent and confidential.
3 Annual published reporting to bring harassment reporting in line with gender pay gap reporting.
4 Increased time limits for sexual harassment grievances to one year so that the impact is recognised
The last one being important because it shouldn’t be reliant on the bravery of a victim to finally come forward after coming to terms with what happened.
Napo’s own Sexual Harassment & Assault Survey
Napo also held its own survey recently and gave some initial feedback at our Women in Napo December meeting. The Survey was for all members, although recognising women tend to be more likely victim of sexual harassment.
We will report more in the Napo Magazine on our Survey in the New Year and watch out for a webinar we’ll also be organising with the Workers’ Policy Project on the End Not Defend campaign.
Consider being a Trade Union or Health & Safety Rep for Napo?
If after reading the above and you’re angry about all this injustice that is happening in workplaces, would you consider being an Equality Rep or H&S Rep for your Napo Branch.
A next course on tackling sexual harassment is organised by the GFTU on 10th March, this is an online 1-day free course for Napo Reps. Below the details if you would like to attend this.
Tackling Sexual Harassment – GFTU Educational Trust
If you’re not a rep yet?
If you would like to discuss any training to become more active in the union, please email training@napo.org.uk and we’ll get back to you asap for a chat about this. Our Napo training is a 3-day online course.
If you don’t want to be a rep or just not sure yet but would like to be a bit more active and perhaps be an office contact for Napo, as in, keeping a union notice board up to date with posters and leaflets and other promotional materials then email Annoesjka Valent, National Official for Trade Union Organisation, at avalent@napo.org.uk
Check if your office has a union notice board, if it hasn’t, they should provide it under our trade union facilities recognition agreement. Request one. And being an office contact doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers for colleagues in your office, you’re just a point of contact and will be a great source of information for reps and your branch and then your branch reps and your national officers and officials will help you with answering any questions.
There is also the resources info web page on the Napo website here at
https://www.napo.org.uk/resources
Look for the Organising link on here but also do look at the H&S section also.
Also, our Operation Protect Workloads Campaign page at Operation Protect | Napo
Please do take in mind that Napo HQ is closed between Christmas and New Year so do get in touch on the above details, training@napo.org.uk or Annoesjka at avalent@napo.org.uk but bear in mind there may be some delayed response due to this and annual leave.
