Women’s rights groups and trade unions have written to Kemi Badenoch to plead for her not to scrap the new worker protection bill, saying new laws are badly needed to tackle “endemic” sexual harassment in the workplace.
The Fawcett Society and Pregnant Then Screwed were among the groups to call on the business secretary not to allow the legislation to time out, after it became a rare example of a private member’s bill winning government backing.
The bill would introduce a legal duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace and to protect staff from third-party harassment by clients and customers.
However, a raft of Conservative peers are opposed to the bill, leading to multiple reports that the government will in effect drop its support by letting it run out of time.
In a joint letter to Badenoch, representatives from 26 organisations – including Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison; Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT; and Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC – made the case that sexual harassment at work was “extensive”, with particular concerns about protecting workers from customers and clients.
They said half of working women would experience workplace sexual harassment, and the figure was even higher forLGBTQ+, disabled and Black women, and they said these figures were likely to be “just the tip of the iceberg as 79% of women do not report their experiences”.
They highlighted that more than half of women working in the hospitality industry had experienced sexual harassment, as well as three in five nurses while carrying out their work.
“From the Presidents Club scandal to more recent allegations emerging from the CBI, we know that sexual harassment is endemic and must be addressed,” they said. “It has been clear for many years that reforms are needed to protect working women from sexual harassment.
“Reform is essential to protect women in the workplace and to drive the culture change necessary to tackle violence against women as well as other forms of discrimination. The reforms will mean that employers must take sexual harassment seriously and take preventative measures to protect workers rather than wait for an incident to occur.”
They called on the government to guarantee that the bill and its new legal protections enter into law in this session of parliament.
Last week, the Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, who introduced the bill, called on the government to continue with its support, after the bill passed all of its House of Commons stages and was expected to pass unopposed through the House of Lords until getting stuck in the upper house due to rebel amendments.
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, assured her that ministers were “engaging with their lordships and others who have raised concerns”, adding her own “assurance that the business managers are alive to this matter, and we will do all we can to ensure these important measures are able to be considered”.
The TUC’s Nowak, said the bill was needed because “sexual harassment is happening on an industrial scale in workplaces across Britain”. He said: “The time for excuses is over. We urgently need to strengthen protections to protect workers.”
Jemima Olchawski, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “We need to see a serious commitment from this government to better protect women at work. It’s nothing short of scandalous that some Tory peers have sought to play politics with a bill which would offer the first significant increase in protections for women since the #MeToo movement. Women deserve and demand better. It’s time for this government to deliver.”
A spokesperson for the government’s equality unit said: ‘There is no place for harassment of any kind. The worker protection bill seeks to strengthen protections against harassment in the workplace.
“We are aware of concerns raised by some parliamentarians about the balance the bill strikes between protecting free speech and tackling harassment. We have made amendments to the bill to address these concerns but will study closely any amendments in parliament.”
