A “DRAMATIC change” is needed to protect female workers with the menopause and stop them being forced out of the labour market, retail workers urged today.

“Dreadful” Tory ministers, who excluded the condition as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, must ensure bosses introduce a menopause policy due to its potentially debilitating symptoms, Usdaw members demanded.

Delegate Karen O’Neill told the retail union’s annual conference in Blackpool that research shows three-quarters of employers lack a medical policy on the condition, which affects most women between the ages of 45 and 55, as there is still no legal requirement to have one.

This is despite a 6 per cent rise in menopause-linked suicides in recent years, she warned. 

“Symptoms can include sweating and insomnia, hot flushes, hair loss, skin irritation, breathlessness, heart palpitations and muscle and joint pain, but every person experiences the menopause differently.

“There’s a complete lack of understanding and awareness about the menopause — it should be more widely talked about. Something dramatic needs to change in society and the workplace.”

The Glasgow-based Tesco Banking employee warned of “gender discrimination, reduced worker engagement and productivity and damaged employee-employer relations.”

She called for every workplace to adopt a “progressive policy to ensure all female, trans and non-binary staff feel fully supported during a potentially stressful and difficult time in their lives.”

Usdaw deputy general secretary Dave McCrossen welcomed the intervention, telling delegates in the coastal city’s Winter Gardens that the issue needs to be tackled as it is “clearly a barrier to women who wish to remain in work.”