Beyond Glass Ceilings and Brick Walls - International Labour ...

The legal officer who had been promoted recently had to share the cubicle
of her boss (female,) which deprived them both of privacy, adequate space,
and appropriate furniture and other equipment; whereas the male managers
(in the company) were well provided for.
A nurse described how the head office did not provide nurses who were
engaged by the agency (virtually all female) any space in the office to linger
or spend non-working time.
In an insurance company, thirty female workers had access to only one
toilet.
While this type of general workplace problems might affect all employees
at some time or another in their working lives, what needs to be explored
here is whether there is a gender dimension to the working conditions
affecting women employees. The crucial question that needs to be asked is
whether these deficiencies/inconveniences arise due to employer assumptions
regarding women’s ‘natural characteristics’ of acquiescence, amiability, and
tolerance etc.
In this context, the worst affected are the women workers in the Free
Trade Zones. Employers (within and outside the zones) violate the law on
night work for women. Management does not obtain consent from the
workers. “They force workers to sign letters consenting to night work and
then each time they are required to work nights, management adds a date
to a photocopied letter, that was signed - these are then submitted to the
Commissioner of Labour, stating that consent has been obtained. Often
workers are required to work at night immediately following a day shift,
women workers then usually sleep for a few hours at the factory, under
their machines, if they have time. This is due to the pressure of work, the
requirement to continue to work the following day and lack of safe
transport home. Night work is mostly considered as overtime, not as a
salary, this means that EPF & ETF payments are affected.” (http://
www.somo.nl/monitoring/reports/sri_lanka.htm).
In many instances, workers have been made to resign when they get
married and not join a trade union without prior written approval from the
management. Many of these workers sleep, live, and work under appalling
conditions, but do not seek redress from Labour Tribunals due to ignorance
and fear of losing their jobs (cited in de Alwis 2000).
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