It’s just shithouse!

Let’s talk amenities. Under work health and safety laws in Australia, amenities must be provided to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of all workers. Amenities include toilets, drinking water, showers, lactation rooms and sanitary bins.

Sometimes two toilets exist, but there are 40 teachers busting to use them at the same time. Sometimes parents pump breastmilk in a work storeroom sitting on a bag of cement. Sometimes a truckdriver hasn’t had access to a shower. Sometimes a bus driver cops abuse from the public if they dare to take a loo break.

We’ve got crane drivers peeing in bottles and council workers weeing up walls. Some workers hold it in and develop kidney problems. Some people are skilled in construction but quit the industry because they don’t want to walk around with a used tampon in their pocket.

The list of WA workers that lack adequate access to clean, safe, accessible amenities is long—manufacturers, construction workers, teachers, truck drivers, bus drivers, train drivers, firefighters, emergency service workers and more. This also extends to trans and gender diverse people, people with disabilities, and people who menstruate.

Other states have better amenities laws for workers. UnionsWA and its affiliates are calling on the Western Australian State Government to play catch up. WA workers are busting for change and are calling on the WA State Government to reform the work, health and safety amenity regulations so that every worker in WA is treated with fairness, dignity and respect.

No worker should have to rely on luck to access a clean and safe toilet at work.