263

of 500 signatures

To Rt Honourable Kemi Badenoch MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy

Open letter text

For thousands of women across the UK, sexism, harassment and misogyny are all too familiar parts of our lives at work. As women and allies, we're writing to you to ask that as Business Secretary, you take urgent action to stem this gross misconduct.

Of Organise members polled, 60% reported being sexually harassed multiple times at work, while 69% have been sexually harassed at least once. Members reported being touched, propositioned, objectified and sexualised, being forcibly shown nude images – the workplace stories go on and on and on.

And what our stories have in common is that this behaviour is rarely taken seriously or dealt with appropriately. We believe more needs to be done to stop sexual harassment, misogyny, and sexism at work.

This is a widespread issue and cannot simply be dealt with on a case by case, or company by company basis – it's a systemic problem that requires government intervention and accountability.

That's why we're asking you to create a set of principles about how companies must deal with sexual harassment, misogyny, and sexism at work. Similar to gender pay gap reporting, we think the government should be holding companies to account and setting high standards.

Here are the principles we'd like to see:

1) Companies should adopt government-approved definitions of sexism, sexual harassment, and misogyny, to make clear what constitutes such behaviour

2) Training for all staff on anti-harassment as part of their induction, with regular "refresher" courses

3) A clearly communicated, safe, and robust reporting process for victims

4) Firm and proportionate disciplinary action for perpetrators of sexism, sexual harassment, and misogyny

5) A legal requirement to include details of upheld sexism, sexual harassment and misogyny complaints on references

6) Annual reporting on the proportion of upheld sexism, sexual harassment and misogyny complaints from large companies

You can see the full results of the survey to Organise members here: https://the.organise.network/surveys/sexism-at-work-survey/results/public

We look forward to hearing from you and working together to address this important issue.

Signed:
Ashleigh Barnes, designer and business owner

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Signers list

Ghislaine Mouysset
Clare Daws
Helen Kemp
Cathryn Wood
Susan Mills
Liz Brereton
Sarah Mcrobert
Susan Bunten
Dorothy Bates
Gemma Cowin
Lisa Braund
Pauline Leyden Is
Sarah Wilson
Andy Meikle
Jayne Linney
Emma Major
Nikki Broadhurst
Phillipa Stephenson
Nat Whalley
Caroline Irving
Diana Czwartacki
Ann Bloxwich
Georgiana Ramona Vasiliu
Carolyn Beswick
Kateheeney Heeney
Helen Folkes
Catherine Melia
Eve Radford
Lisa James
Hailey Hubbard
Maria Schunter
Seren Leathers
Christina Gardener-White
Rebecca Hay
Sophie Ottley
Mary Collins
Matthew Johnson
Ms Vanessa-Anne Williams
Lucy Green
Julie Brown
Erica Levy Levy
Mairead Mackechnie
Jo Savill
Margaret Mcphail
Maureen Mckeown
Laura Ramsbottom
Terry Brough
Charlotte Cantrell
Jane Butcher
Vanessa Johnson

Hold Companies Accountable for Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Misogyny in the Workplace.

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