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STUC Women’s Conference: Usdaw calls on the Government to tackle pregnancy discrimination

Date: 25 October 2021 Shopworkers’ trade union Usdaw has a delegation of members promoting its motion on tackling pregnancy discrimination at this year’s Scottish Trades Union Congress Women’s Conference.
Usdaw General Secretary Paddy Lillis says: “There is a still a long way to go before women in Scotland, the UK and across the world, achieve equality with men.  Women are still more likely to be unemployed or in low paid, exploitative, temporary and insecure jobs. They experience discrimination in almost every sphere of public and private life, from being paid less than men for doing the same job to being discriminated against when they become pregnant.

“Discrimination against pregnant women remains all too common, nearly eight in ten pregnant women and new mothers have experienced some form of discrimination or negative treatment at work. And, based on the prehistoric attitudes of managers, this is completely unsurprising.

“We need the Government to recognise the extent of the issue. It is completely unacceptable that there has not been an updated study on the impact of pregnancy discrimination for over five years.

“Once the Government has accepted the scale of the issue, there must be clear steps to tackle workplace discrimination towards pregnant women. Steps which include eradicating the issues pregnant women face when employers are making redundancies.

“While there are limited protections in place for pregnant workers, Usdaw’s experience clearly shows that these protections do not go far enough. This issue demonstrates exactly why strong employment and equality rights are essential, not just during pregnancy and maternity leave, but as new mothers return to work. Effective changes such as these can help ensure that women’s experience of parenthood and the workplace can be a positive one.”

Note to Editors

Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with over 370,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.

For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion

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The official website of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers