THE labour movement must respond to assaults and threats faced by women at work however they appear, trade unionists urged today.

Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union general secretary Sarah Wooley chaired the fringe meeting at the TUC women’s conference in Bournemouth, which also heard from National Union of Journalists general secretary Laura Davison and Jackie Marshall of the Prison Officers Association.

RMT’s Annila Saghir spoke about the need for allyship, describing her own personal experience of assault on a train.

“The train driver just went: ‘It’s my train; we’re stopping at the next stop,’” she said, explaining how a colleague’s support had helped her decide to report the incident.

Ms Saghir also highlighted how cuts have a “trickling effect,” with a reduction in train guard numbers across Britain’s railways leading to unsafe conditions for all.

UCU president Maria Chondrogianni highlighted the impact of unfair and exploitative terms and conditions on women workers.

“We need to all remember that excessive workloads are an assault, that a threat to diversity is an assault, that zero-hour contracts are an assault,” she said.

“The majority of workers who experience and face these assaults are women, trans-sisters, black women, disabled women, and that needs to stop.

“Every worker deserves to be able to go to work, to travel to and from work, without risk of injury, without risk of harassment, without risk of assault.

“This is basic trade unionism. And of course, [we] kept on hearing today that this is not the case.”

Earlier, the conference heard from delegates who had experienced or witnessed assaults and harassment while working.

Ms Chondrogianni said that a major threat to women workers’ safety came from understaffing.

“In many situations, we have one worker trying to do the work of three,” she said.

“Certainly, this is the case in prison education, in adult education, in further education, in higher education — and this leads not only to inefficiencies but also greater risk of injury, burnout.

“Work has been unsafe because we are on our own and we don’t have enough colleagues with us.”

Ms Chondrogianni added the problem of assaults and threats “may be worse in non-unionised workplaces because sisters have nowhere to go for help.

“One of our duties, always, is to promote trade union membership at all places — there is only one answer to all this,” she insisted.