Received from: BFAWU
Congress agrees that the exposure of McDonald’s in the last 12 months, its failure to deal with sexual harassment and violence as well as its CEO admitting to receiving one or two complaints a week shows the urgent need for legislation to protect workers from this toxic behaviour.
Congress agrees to work with the BFAWU on a campaign to bring into legislation a new requirement for reporting cases of sexual harassment and violence similar to reporting accidents in the workplace (RIDDOR) and to lobby the incoming government to create and resource a new, cross-cooperation panel to overview sexual harassment in the workplace between TUC, EHRC and HSE.
Congress agrees that the campaign should create:
i. a reporting line which takes anonymised details of the incident and forwards the complaint to employers and generates a reference number
ii. a structure so that the anonymised complaint becomes reportable and part of a company’s reporting requirements until both parties agree that the situation has been resolved satisfactorily, without forced NDAs
iii. the ability to remove the ‘three-month less one-day’ rule for such issues, recognising that these cases are often not reported for some time due to fear or some other substantial reason
iv. structures so that trade unions are consulted in such cases and that any agreements with employers include representation through the members union or TUC-appointed facilitator
v. structures to enable workers not represented by trade unions to be supported in a similar way
vi. a training programme agreed via the tripartite for union reps and workers.
Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union