Women truck drivers who use the port of Folkestone are celebrating a breakthrough this week in their world-wide “Right to Pee” campaign. Following pressure from the TGWU the Harbour Master at the cross channel port has announced the opening of a women’s toilet. The new facility at the HGV parking area will also be protected for women’s use by a special key system.
Local T&G branch secretary Rachael Webb, said the inspiration had come from women bus workers in Bristol who started the campaign with a resolution to the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF).
“It comes to something when we have to celebrate the opening of a toilet,” Rachael said, “but this means a lot to us”
The world-wide “Right to Pee” Campaign arose as a result of a resolution from the T&G Bristol Passenger Services Branch to a meeting of the ITF Women in Transport meeting last autumn. This meeting of 110 women from all over the world shared experiences – from a woman bus driver from Mumbai to a woman ship’s captain from West Africa and a woman docker from Argentina. All of them told of how, as women workers, they were affected by the lack of facilities during their working lives.