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THE scourge of sexual harassment and misogyny in the workplace was highlighted in a panel discussion at TUC Black Workers’ Conference today.
Michelle Codrington-Rogers, from teaching union NASUWT, chaired the discussion and pointed delegates to a recent TUC report on black women’s experiences of sexual harassment.
“This is about repaying the trust given by people who came forward to give evidence for the report,” she said.
The panel included Dawn Butler MP, Janet Hankin from Usdaw, Shabna Begum of the Runnymede Trust and Mel Mullings of RMT.
Ms Butler read an extract from her book about what it felt like to be a black woman MP.
She told of the lack of compassion received from a white Labour MP when she raised her experience of racism.
But she said she quickly came to the conclusion that “when people don’t like you it’s because you know your shit [and they don’t].”
Ms Hankin, the first black woman on Usdaw’s national executive committee, said: “Women on the shop floor are at risk of harassment not just from colleagues but also from customers.
“Speaking up when you are isolated, as you often are in retail, is tough. But even when we do speak up, we are often disbelieved.
“Raising issues also often marks you out as a trouble maker.”
Ms Hankin said an Usdaw report found that seven out of 10 women in the union have experienced sexual harassment.
“We must continue to support black leadership programmes such as Usdaw’s breaking down barriers programme,” she said.
Ms Begum, the chief executive of Runnymede, said we were all still recovering from last year’s racist riots.
“We cannot divorce the sort of things that we saw last year from what we see in our workplaces,” she said. “We are living in an incredibly hostile environment.”
Ms Begum pointed out that “these are highly politicised attacks on black women in the workplace,” going on to talk about how far too often black women are continually undervalued across society and in workplaces.
“We must remember that there are mental and physical impacts of working in a racist society,” she said.
“We carry the double burden of being black and being women. This means that we always have to second guess what is happening to us.
“This hyper vigilance has a massive impact on black women.”
