The National Association of Local Government Employees (NALGO) was at the forefront of trade union campaigning against sexual harassment.
Sometimes described as the ‘town hall union’, NALGO’s membership of white-collar council workers was exactly 50% female. The campaign around sexual harassment was developed by female activists in response to the problems they experienced with the behaviour of bosses, colleagues, employers and, indeed, fellow trade unionists.
The issue first came to public prominence in the summer of 1979 when three female NALGO members working for the London Borough of Brent made complaints against a senior male officer (also a union member). The union’s Head Office issued libel writs against the women’s union representatives, and those involved were suspended from work while the council conducted its inquiry into the case. The employers asked the women to retract their allegations – but they refused and were moved to lower status jobs, leading to outcry from women locally and in other branches.
This set of events prompted the launch of a concerted campaign in 1981 (against a backdrop of economic recession) that drew on the tactics developed by trade unions (and women’s groups) in Canada. The documentary film It’s Not Your Imagination, made by Women Against Violence Against Women in Vancouver and distributed in the UK by Cinema of Women, was shown at awareness-raising events.
Surveys were launched of NALGO members in Camden (London) and Liverpool, attracting very considerable press attention (some positive and some negative).
In July 1981 NALGO published the leaflet Sexual Harassment is a Trade Union Issue. It was the first trade union in the UK to do so.
The leaflet explained:
‘We cannot hope for long-term success with our policies on equal opportunities in recruitment, promotion and training if women are seen simply as sex objects. Nor can we forget that the stress women experience as a result of sexual harassment is a very real health and safety problem. In the past members may often have changed their jobs to get away from sexual harassment. This was always a poor solution. Now, in the present economic climate, it is no solution at all. Sexual harassment is a trade union issue, not a personal problem, and it is hoped that this leaflet will help branches to deal with it as such.’
The leaflet provided practical suggestions: on making individual complaints through work-place procedures, negotiating appropriate policies with employers, and raising awareness amongst colleagues and union members. ‘Men can be harassed too’, it argued, but it was ‘a problem that in the main affects women, and thus this pamphlet refers to women as the sufferers of sexual harassment’.
The NALGO campaign and its survey of Liverpool town hall workers was featured in ITV’s TV Eye documentary ‘Unwelcome Advances’ (broadcast in October 1981)
Further reading:
Nathalie Hadjifotiou, Women and Harassment at Work (Pluto Press, 1983).