10. Women on board!

More women in the transportsector

Paola Tapia was Chile’s first female transport minister. It illustrates the country’s male dominance. In a newspaper interview, she says that in 2013, one per cent of public transport drivers in Chile were women. Thanks to a special programme, that number could be boosted to seven per cent in a year’s time. She highlights its benefits. First, in terms of safer driving: women have fewer accidents. Second, female drivers show more empathy with users. Third, they are associated with a more pleasant working atmosphere. Another advantage: for mothers with children, the job guarantees financial independence.

Meanwhile, Paola Tapia is active with Mujeres en Movimiento. This is a movement working to enable women to use public transport without intimidation, violence or harassment. “At this point, I must mention the significant number of cases of harassment and violence on public transport,” she says. “We are campaigning to draw attention to this problem, which should never be ignored. We must also work with companies and drivers to develop clear guidelines for listening, reporting and following up. The worst thing that could happen would be if a victim of harassment dared to report the facts and the perpetrator avoided the corresponding punishment. Our legislation is strict enough, but the mechanisms to establish such behaviour must work. To take action, we need cameras on board of buses and a suitable mechanism to allow drivers to report a problem quickly. We have also launched a programme to make bus stops safer and more accessible, with an alarm button in case of intimidation.”

Her story is a clear example of how women in the transport sector are still in a vulnerable situation today. Both as public transport passengers, but also as staff members.

Pull down the macho wall

A pre-pandemic survey of more than 3,000 women in the transport sector found that high levels of violence and harassment are among the barriers keeping women away from the transport sector. According to statistics, only 22 per cent of transport workers in Europe are women.

If we want to make the transport industry more female-friendly and ensure that more women come to work in it, we will first and foremost have to ensure that women can get to work and back home safely. Many jobs – not only in the transport industry – operate with night shifts or shift work.

An ETF survey of more than 1,000 female transport workers in Europe (2017) found that 63 per cent of them had been victims of an act of violence at least once, and 26 per cent of them did not report the problem because they thought harassment was part of the job, including traveling to and from work.

That is why ETF is campaigning – at the suggestion of UK trade union Unite – around Bring me home safely. To launch the campaign, the ETF collected stories from female transport workers from across Europe and revealed what it is like behind the scenes. What happens when their shift starts early? How do they get home after a long working day? Based on these testimonies, a practical programme of proposals was developed that would ensure women get to work and home safely.

One of the central demands here is ratification of ILO Convention 190.

If we want to open the doors of the transport industry to women, we will have to start by making decent sanitation facilities available in the sector. Decent sanitation and washing facilities are actually a human right. They are also essential for decent work in the global transport economy, essential for the health, safety and welfare of transport workers.

A toilet must be available, clean, private, safe and accessible to all transport workers, wherever they work. And this is far from being the case, even in so-called developed countries. And not even in my country.

‘If we want to open the doors of the transport industry to women, we will have to start by making decent sanitation facilities available in the sector.’

It was in 2019 when a female bus driver, Else Martens, a member and militant of BTB, put the lack of facilities for female bus drivers on the agenda. At the last stop on her bus line, there were no toilets. If there are no toilets, men can pee against a tree. Women cannot. Women have different needs, for example when they menstruate. Moreover, the workload in Else’s team was sometimes so heavy that they barely had time to go to the toilet anyway. BTB had to campaign for months to get toilets for all drivers.

Women transport workers around the world face this. Many transport companies do not even provide facilities for female employees, putting women at risk of violence and poor health. Which hampers their work in the transport sector. The lack of toilets forces workers to improvise, for example by using nappies and bottles, or holding it in. Sanitary facilities are a must if we want to encourage women to join the transport sectors.

SARA TRIPODI
°08/08/1979. Italy.
General Secretary of FILT-CGIL for the province of Monza and Brianza. Chairwoman of the ETF Women’s Committee. International Department of FILT-CGIL Nazionale. Member of the Executive Committee of the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF).

‘Are we attracting enough women as union representatives? Women are better placed to represent women’s needs in negotiations and set an exemple for other women in the workplace.’

SARA TRIPODI

It is estimated that one in three women worldwide is a victim of physical or sexual violence. In the European Union, more than 30% of cases of sexual intimidation against women occur in the workplace. And many women are also victims of discrimination in the workplace: at the point of recruitment, in terms of pay and benefits, and in terms of career development opportunities. As a trade union, we have an important role to play in this area, both by making girls and women more resilient and by protecting them. At work and in everyday life.

Unfortunately, my home country of Italy is often at the centre of world news when it comes to violence against women. Take, for example, the wave of sex crimes in Rome a few years ago, or the Italian judge who decided to acquit a concierge because the assault on the under-age victim lasted “only” 10 seconds. As a union representative, I have also had to deal with violence against women on several occasions, not to mention the discriminatory remarks that female train attendants have to put up with from passengers or the sexist jokes made by male colleagues.

What can we do about it? First of all, more legal instruments are needed to protect victims. Since 2019, there has been an ILO treaty banning violence and bullying at work. However, by mid-2023, only seven Member States had ratified it. And there is currently no specific European legislation to combat violence against women.

On 8th March 2022, the European Commission nevertheless proposed a directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence. But there is still no final wording of the legislation. As a trade union, we must also work to ensure that these proposals are put into practice.

Within the ETF’s Committee for Women, we have developed several toolkits designed to prevent violence in the workplace, as well as a guide dealing with violence against women and the bullying of women in the workplace. We need to distribute this material so that employers and workers have powerful tools with which to take action.

Secondly, we need to make our own transport sector more attractive to women. It’s not enough simply to recruit women; we need to redouble our efforts to keep them in the industry. There are a number of things that can make a difference: a better work-life balance, separate toilets, appropriate uniforms, etc. We need to look not only at companies, but also at our own trade union organisations. Are women sufficiently represented in management positions? Are we attracting enough women as union representatives? Obviously, women are better placed to represent women’s needs in negotiations and set an example for other women in the workplace.

I’d like to conclude with a quote from an extraordinary man, Kofi Annan: “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a prerequisite for tackling challenges such as reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and establishing good governance.”

9. Free trade unions are the counterbalance

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11. Young people are the present