The Electrical Trades Union released a report in 2021 called ‘Nowhere to Go’ about the lack of adequate bathroom amenities for workers on many work sites around Australia. 

The report exposes unsanitary, unsafe, inaccessible and unsuitable amenities faced by many workers in our industry and how this issue is disproportionately impacting women.

It also raises deeper issues of many employers’ outdated attitudes towards women and blue-collar workers in subjecting them to conditions which would never be tolerated in the white-collar world.

A national survey in 2022 of electrical workers revealed shocking statistics of access and standards of amenities in the electrical and other trades.

Women have many different needs for bathroom amenities ­– they deal with menstrual cycles, pregnancy, post-pregnancy, breastfeeding, and more. Not having adequate facilities is both a threat to their health and safety and a barrier for women’s participation in the workforce.

For men with health issues such as prostate problems, returning to work can be impossible just because of where the bathroom is. When the amenities do exist, they are often not clean or hygienic, are far away from the work site or in an unsafe location. 

In some work sites women report simply not drinking water at all on a 12-hour shift rather than leaving their post for a half hour round trip just to use the bathroom. This is an unsafe practice that can leave workers dehydrated and fatigued – but needing to pack up a job so that one worker can be transported to the bathrooms also puts pressure on everyone to rush to get things done quicker or delay the whole job.  It’s an unfair choice that workers shouldn’t have to make.

Additionally, women face major barriers when attempting to address these issues. They face employers who believe that the provision of adequate amenities will somehow provide women with ‘special treatment’.