Sexual harassment remains a ‘scourge’ on our workplaces

PCS Work Without Fear campaign highlighted at conference fringe meeting which hears shocking stories of sexual harassment from our members.

 

[TRIGGER WARNING: sexual harassment and assault] 

Powerful testimonies from members who have experienced sexual harassment at work stunned a PCS fringe meeting into silence on Wednesday (20).

The meeting on sexual harassment as a workplace issue was held to update members on the work the union has been doing since conference in 2023, including an all-member survey that received nearly 5,000 responses and new practical materials to help reps and members tackle the issue. 

A selection of testimonies was displayed in a video, some of which were read out by our general secretary Fran Heathcote. She said sexual harassment remains a “scourge” on society and within workplaces and that it’s an important issue which PCS takes “incredibly seriously”.

Research suggests more than half of women and nearly 70% of LGBT workers have experienced sexual harassment, which still remains hugely under-reported.

Anonymous quotes from the PCS survey were displayed to the meeting, including the following stories:

  • “Pay day Friday after-work drinks. My male work friend kept making suggestive comments and asking for a date, asking to kiss me. I kept saying no. I got up to move away from him. He grabbed my face in both his hands and licked my face. He said ‘next time I will do that to your f*nny’. I left in tears.”
  • “I had just returned from maternity leave and was still breast feeding my baby. I got up from my desk to go to a private room to pump, a guy in my team said ‘I will help you empty them mummy’, while staring at my breasts. I nearly threw up.”
  • “I'm a Black woman. My new older, white male manager on meeting in person asked me if I have ‘those National Geographic t*tties’.”

The union’s head of equality Diane Ebanks read a harrowing, detailed account from a PCS member of a prolonged sexual harassment campaign by her manager. 

The behaviour began “subtly and insidiously, with pushing boundaries and gaining information to use against me, then escalated over time,” she said.

His deliberate tactics included inappropriate touching, intimidation, threats, invasion of private space, and other behaviours that caused her to change her routines and start working more from home, while suffering from increasing anxiety. The campaign culminated in a violent attack in the workplace that left her traumatised, bleeding and vomiting.

As she fled screaming from a meeting room, a colleague followed her into the toilets and said, “oh no, he’s done it again”.

With help from her PCS rep the case was pursued but managers who were friends with the perpetrator tried to blame the victim. Her abuser was given time to resign, got a job in another government department, and faced no sanctions.

“[My rep] and the union pushed for a full investigation into [the abuser’s] conduct against me, other woman in the team, and the management cover up. We reached financial settlements and senior managers were disciplined. They introduced new policies on sexual harassment. That is a victory. But nothing can fix the damage that was done to me and other survivors,” she said.

Stories like this are the reason PCS and others are determined to keep the issue at the forefront.

The fringe also heard from PCS head of legal, Laura Barroso, who updated members on relevant legal developments such as the 2024 Worker Protection Act and measures within the new Employment Rights Act which now obliges employers to proactively take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.

Also making a presentation to the meeting was Carol Ferguson of the TUC’s equality department, who led on a TUC report on Black women’s experience of sexual harassment in the workplace, titled ‘And then it clicked..’. The work carried out for the report provided a space to articulate how ‘misogynoir’ manifests – in other words, sexism and harassment that’s intertwined with race and racism.

She said it was important for unions to create spaces for Black women to come together and talk about workplace issues. “It takes time and a lot of emotional labour and cannot be done just by Black women alone,” she said.

In closing the meeting, chair Jackie Green said that members should remember that while women make up the majority of those who experience sexual harassment, men can also be victims and are also often effective allies.

Read more updates from conference on our dedicated web page. Follow #PCSADC