Unite the Union survey finds almost 10% of women in Scotland sexually harassed while at work

Nearly 10% of women in Scotland have been sexually harassed at work, a Unite survey has found.

The poll heard from 6,500 women across the UK and Ireland, with 1,143 female Unite members responding in Scotland alone.

The Scottish survey findings revealed that 9.3% had been sexually assaulted, while 4.6% had been sexually coerced, at work.

Of the women who said they have been harassed, 52% said they had been recipients of inappropriate sexual jokes, and 45.6% said they experienced unwanted flirting.

In addition, 37.5% said they had been inappropriately touched, and 13.6% had been shown pornographic images by a manager or colleague.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Staff safety should be among the highest priorities for employers, but the results of our Scottish survey are damming and show women workers are being failed by bosses.

“Nobody should suffer sexual harassment in the workplace. Unite is committed to taking a zero-tolerance approach and we will put every Scottish based employer turning a blind eye on notice.

“We will fight every step of the way to stamp out workplace harassment once and for all. Every worker deserves a safe working environment and should feel able to report harassment.”

Part of Unite’s Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment campaign, the trade union polled women working across all 19 sectors of the economy where Unite represents almost 300,000 members.

It found that some sectors were more affected than others, with women working in construction, civil air transport, passenger transport, food, drink, agricultural and road transport, warehousing, and logistics experiencing higher percentages of incidents.

Unite said some respondents had been disbelieved or accused of lying when reporting incidents. Others said perpetrators had been allowed to remain at the workplace and in some cases had even been promoted.

Some victims of harassment at work said they had been let go from their roles after reporting it to line managers.

The trade union has claimed that despite the Worker Protection Act 2023 becoming law last October, research shows the act is “not being implemented fully, and workers are being failed”.

‘I felt worthless’

One Unite member, who works in the food, drink and agriculture industry, said that despite reporting sexual comments from contractors, ‘nothing was ever done about it’.

It was only after another female worker reported similar inappropriate comments that action was taken.

“I reported disgusting behaviour and sexual comments from contractors which I had put up with for over two years and nothing was ever done about it”, the unnamed worker said.

“I refused to work with them in the end and they were still given work for over 12 months afterwards until another female colleague reported them and then action was finally taken.

“It made me feel worthless knowing that nobody had taken any notice of what I had said, and action was only taken after the reports from another female colleague.”

Another worker said that she was sacked after revealing she was sexually harassed by a manger in the construction industry.

She said: “I was sexually harassed by my manager in a previous job for several months. I finally built up the courage to confide in the company owner who reassured me that I’d done the right thing by telling him.

“He sacked me the following morning… it devastated me and drove me away from working in the construction industry for many years.”

Unite has now launched a campaign calling for greater protections for women in the workplace, with measures including:

The introduction of a standalone sexual harassment policy.
Mandatory training on sexual harassment for all employees.
The deadline for being able to make a claim in an employment tribunal to be extended from three months after the incident occurred to six months as a minimum for lodging a claim.
The government should introduce extra legal protections, for example, the Health and Safety Executive should treat third-party harassment and sexual harassment as workplace injuries.

Unite’s Scottish equalities officer Lorna Glen said: “The Worker Protection Act has not gone far enough in keeping women safe from sexual harassment in Scottish workplaces.

“Employers are not taking their obligations seriously despite the fact it is the law. This is creating a culture where sexual harassment is going unreported, while those who do take the issues forward are left feeling disbelieved, forced to work with abusers and even losing their roles.

“Unite is calling on the Scottish and UK governments to take our demands seriously to stamp out sexual harassment at work.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government is clear that there is no place for harassment or abuse in the workplace. Everyone deserves to be respected and to feel safe in their working environment and all employers have a duty of care to protect the health, safety and welfare of their workers.

“While employment law is reserved, our Fair Work First guidance encourages employers to have in place robust workplace policies for handling issues such as bullying or harassment. The Scottish Government’s Delivering Equally Safe Fund is providing £21.6m to 115 projects in 2025-26 to address gender-based violence and sexual harassment through early intervention, prevention and support services.”