Guest piece by Jo-Ann Ward: PILA supports ActionAid’s campaign to end violence and harassment against women

Jo-Ann Ward is Communications, Campaigns and Digital Coordinator at ActionAid Ireland.

Globally, 35% of women – 818 million people – over the age of 15 have experienced sexual or physical violence at home, in their communities or in the workplace. Sexual harassment experienced by women workers is the most reported form of violence.

Yet, up until June 2019, there was no law at an international level which protected workers from violence and harassment at work.

Ahead of the adoption of the first ever international labour standard to address gender-based violence and harassment in work, the Public Interest Law Alliance (PILA) helped ActionAid Ireland to analyse the impact it could have for vulnerable groups in Ireland.

Why we needed PILA’s help

Every day Irish consumers buy products such as clothes, toys, electronics and fresh produce made in countries which do not have laws that protect workers from violence and harassment. And so, as ActionAid Ireland, we felt it was crucial to take part in a global campaign for the adoption of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention to End Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. 

Violence and harassment is not something that only happens overseas. While violence and harassment in the world of work in Ireland is under researched,  violence and harassment against women is common in Ireland. According to research by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Ireland has the second highest number of women avoiding places or situations for fear of being assaulted out of all EU countries. 33% of Irish respondents thought that violence against women was very common, and 50% thought it was fairly common.

We were concerned that some groups could be more vulnerable to violence and harassment than others. For example, workplace exploitation is a persistent problem facing migrant workers. Over the last 10 years Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) have assisted thousands of workers to claim unpaid wages and seek legal redress for the abuse of their employment rights.

And so, in late 2018, ActionAid approached PILA to ask for help analysing the upcoming ILO Convention, to determine if it could offer better protection for vulnerable groups in Ireland, for example migrants.

Expert analysis of current employment law

In February 2019, through PILA, we began working with a team from McCann Fitzgerald and Barrister Michael Kinsley. The team analysed laws in Ireland that could provide protection to workers from violence and harassment, across five different pieces of legislation: The Employment Equality Acts 1998 – 2015; Non-Fatal Offences Against the Persons Act 1997; Protected Disclosures Act 2014; Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977-2015.

In McCann FitzGerald’s detailed report, the overall finding was that Irish law is largely compliant with the proposed convention. However, given the size and scope of the project and the time spent by a team of experienced lawyers in analysing five different pieces of legislation, an additional finding was that while the law exists, it could potentially be inaccessible to the most vulnerable in society.

The team helped ActionAid prepare a series of recommendations. The number one recommendation is to raise awareness of Irish laws and policies that protect employees from violence and harassment.

Three additional recommendations are:

• To provide better clarity on what it is to be an employee, as what it means to be a “worker” differed across the five pieces of legislation that were examined, with The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 providing the clearest definition.
• To expand on what a serious wrongdoing includes under section 3 of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. The team found that the definition of wrong doing would benefit from further clarity ((b) an act, omission, or course of conduct that constitutes a serious risk to public health or public safety or the environment;) as to whether the risk can be to an individual and if the health can be interpreted to include mental health.
• To amend The Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977-2015 so that it explicitly provides that a dismissal will be presumed unfair if it occurs in circumstances where an individual has been subject to violence or harassment at work or where an individual has been dismissed on the basis of gender. 

ActionAid Ireland shared the findings with the Irish Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). Both had a very progressive stance towards the proposed convention and found the analysis useful.

Next steps

In June 2019 the world’s Governments, employers and workers adopted the convention. The Irish Government, IBEC and the ICTU were active participants in the negotiations.

The ILO also voted on a very progressive Recommendation (R206) for the convention, which includes strategies to ensure all workers are aware of their rights, in line with our key recommendation.

ActionAid is now asking the Irish Government to be one of the first countries in the world to ratify the convention and adopt the recommendation. You can help by writing to the Ministers responsible here: https://actionaid.ie/all-women-work/