In posts on social media, the division of the ITF has called for employers to respect basic human rights and the United Nations (UN) Global Compact by providing decent toilets for all women workers and all dockworkers.
The UN Global Compact is an initiative to encourage businesses globally to take up sustainable and socially responsible policies and report on their application.
In a post on its Facebook page, ITF Dockers said it was “disgraceful that discriminatory practices, including the lack of basic amenities, perpetuates the dominant global culture that port work is still a man’s world.”
The ITF subsection also said: “If our port employers choose not to provide toilet facilities for women workers, it is the clearest indication that they do not intend to employ women or keep them healthy and safe.
“This is direct sex discrimination. We oppose it and will fight against it.”
The port worker group also called for employers to make a public commitment to tackle occupational segregation, with a starting point for this being decent toilets for all women workers.
ITF Dockers also invited people to rate both their women’s toilet facilities and their toilet facilities as a whole on a scale from zero to five, with zero being “No Toilets” and five being “Enough, clean & safe facilities”.
