Almost Half of Female Transport Workers Suffer Sexual Assault at Work

Almost half of women working in the transport sector have been sexually assaulted at work, according to a new survey.

Women working in passenger transport, which includes bus drivers and taxi operators, were asked about their experiences of harassment while at work, travelling to work, or from a colleague both in and out of work hours. 

The poll, carried out as part of a Unite the union’s Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment campaign, surveyed members across 19 industrial sectors, including construction and hospitality.

Passenger transport is one of the worst affected sectors, with a shocking 12% of respondents reporting having faced sexual coercion, whereby a person pressures, tricks, threatens, or manipulates someone into engaging in sexual activity without genuine consent, while at work.

Four in 10 women working in transport reported having suffered workplace sexual assault.

71% of women polled had been the recipient of sexually offensive jokes, with a further 70% experiencing unwanted flirting, gesturing or sexual remarks.

One woman said: “I’m a bus driver and have been for 25 years, I have had years of sexual harassment too many times. The odd occasions I have reported it, I have been told I’m oversensitive. I deal with the offenders myself nowadays.”

Another woman working in the industry said: “I didn’t report it due to the position in work the person was in. I felt it would affect my job. I do know I’m not alone.”

56% of those polled said that they had been inappropriately touched, with a further 45% reporting having been sent or shown pornographic images by a manager, colleague, or third party such as a passenger.

Some women said they either had to carry on working with abusers after reporting incidents or were even forced out of their own job roles.

One respondent said: “I was sexually assaulted by a colleague outside of work, the police were involved. All I asked from the company was to be kept out of a particular area that he goes in regularly, but apparently this could not be done. 

“It would not have affected my work in any way whatsoever. So, I have to see the person who assaulted me, because they won’t allow me to go to a different space on these occasions.”

For most respondents, sexual harassment at work was not a one-off problem: 57% had experienced it more than twice. Despite the frequency of harassment, three in four women said that they hadn’t reported the incidents, either because they worried it wouldn’t be believed, could put their job at risk, or wouldn’t be taken seriously. 

One woman said: “I was stalked by a passenger for months, who took pictures of me and hugged me without consent, would always lean into the cab and stroke my arms. It was reported to management numerous times, but was told as long as he had a valid ticket to travel there wasn’t anything they could do.”

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Staff safety should be among the highest priorities for employers in the passenger transport industry, but the results of our survey are damning and show women workers are being failed by bosses.

“Nobody should suffer sexual harassment in the workplace. Unite is committed to taking a zero-tolerance approach and we are putting every employer turning a blind eye on notice.

“We will fight every step of the way to stamp out workplace harassment once and for all. Every worker deserves a safe working environment and should feel able to report harassment.”

The union is calling for mandatory training on sexual harassment for all employees, as well as the introduction of a standalone sexual harassment policy. It’s also pushing for the deadline for bringing a claim to an employment tribunal to be extended from three to six months after the harassment occurred.

Additionally, Unite is calling on the government to bring in additional legal protections to protect women, such as having the Health and Safety Executive treat sexual harassment as a workplace injury.

Last October, the Worker Protection Act 2023 became law, creating an obligation on employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment, including from third-party harassment, such as protecting waitresses from harassment by customers.

This means employers should anticipate where harassment might occur, and act to prevent it, in part through the creation of action plans and risk assessments.

Despite the new onus on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, Unite argues that the act is not being implemented fully and workers are being failed.

Following the introduction of the legislation, it found that one in five women working in passenger transport felt their employer had done enough to promote a sexual harassment zero-tolerance culture.

Unite national women’s officer Alison Spencer-Scragg said: “The Worker Protection Act has not gone far enough in keeping women who work in passenger transport safe from sexual harassment at their workplace.

“Employers are not taking their obligations seriously despite the fact it is the law. This is creating a culture where sexual harassment is going unreported, while those who do take the issues forward are left feeling disbelieved, forced to work with abusers and even losing their roles.”

The limits of the legislation hasn’t stopped Reform from attacking it. In January, party leader Nigel Farage used his GB News show to describe the new law as the death knell for pub banter.

He said that the new legislation “says that debates should not happen in pubs if they’re offensive to staff. And this could well include debates such as transgender rights and veganism. And if they’re being expressed in a contentious way, people in the pub could be asked to leave. You might as well close the pubs down!”

General secretary of the Trade Union Congress, Paul Nowak, shot back that the measure was instead about “ensuring employers take reasonable steps to protect workers from aggressive customers,” with “punters still able to talk freely in pubs.”

Nowak said that: “Reform has no plan for workers and Nigel Farage is no friend of working people – he’s on the side of bad bosses, zero-hours contracts and fire-and-rehire.”