Not part of the job

What do we mean by third-party?

A third party refers to someone who a worker interacts with as part of their job but who is not employed by the same employer as them. Some examples are:

• Customer – such as in a shop, a restaurant, a train passenger or a hotel guest
• Client – such as in a meeting, or when visiting someone’s home to care for them
• Patient – such as in a hospital
• Business contact – such as in a meeting or at a conference
• Any non-directly employed staff, such as contractors or agency workers

What do we know about third-party harassment?

Harassment is where someone’s behaviour is meant to or has the effect of either: violating someone’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

Employers who fail to protect their employees from harassment in their workplace are breaking the law. All employers have a duty to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees, which includes preventing bullying, harassment and violence.[1] This is the case for any risk to an employee’s health and safety at work. An employer should act to protect a member of staff who is being harassed by a third-party the same way as if they are being harassed by a colleague. However, some employers don’t understand what their duties are and use the confusion as an excuse to do nothing. Other employers do know what their duties are, and still do nothing.

The harassment can take many forms: physical or verbal abuse, stalking, creating an intimidating environment, e.g. the display and/or sharing of offensive images. Third-party harassment, like any form of workplace harassment, can take place in the workplace as well as on site visits, on social media and forms of online communication such as emails, texts and messaging services, or during away days and social events arranged by the employer.

If the harassment is based on a person’s sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and/or age, then an employer may be in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Causing a person harassment, alarm or distress can be a criminal act and in certain circumstances the police can charge the harasser with a criminal offence.[2]

Previous TUC research into bullying, harassment and discrimination at work has provided important information about the prevalence of harassment by third-parties. In 2016, seven per cent of women who had experienced sexual harassment at work reported that the perpetrator was a third party.[3] Breaking this down by sector, eleven per cent of women in retail and nine per cent of women in medical and health services reported that the perpetrator was a client or customer. There was also some variation by age with younger women being more likely (13 per cent) to be harassed by a third-party.

Our 2017 report about the experiences of racism and discrimination at work found that, for BME workers who had experienced verbal abuse, nearly one quarter (24 per cent) was perpetrated by a customer, client or patient.[4] 25 per cent of racist remarks, opinions or jokes directed at BME workers was from a customer, client or patient. Third-parties were the second most common perpetrator of assault or physical violence, reported by 23 per cent of respondents who had experienced it.

Our 2017 survey into the experiences of LGBT+ workers showed that almost 15 per cent of respondents who experienced discrimination at work said that this came from a client or patient.[5] Many respondents said they would like to see clearer policies because the absence of guidance leaves them open to discrimination.

All the reports found that in cases where the perpetrator of harassment or discrimination is not an employee, victims may be more reluctant to report the incident because there is a perception that it will not be dealt with in the same way as it would be if the perpetrator were another employee.

Evidence suggests that harassment from third-parties is getting worse. Usdaw, which represents over 430,000 workers, mostly working in retail, surveys its members annually to find out about incidences of violence and abuse from customers. The latest survey found that two-thirds of shop workers were verbally abused last year, 42 per cent were threatened and there were over 265 assaults every day. This represented a 25 per cent increase in abuse and a staggering 38 per cent increase in assaults and threats from the previous year.[6]

Why we spoke to young workers

A worker of any age can be a victim of harassment, abuse and bullying at work. This report does not seek to show that young workers are the sole victims of these behaviours. However, young workers as a group are disproportionately impacted by harassment, abuse and bullying at work due to the sectors they work in and their relatively weak position in the labour market. Workers who interact with the public as part of their job are – by default – far more likely to experience harassment, abuse or violence from the public than those who do not interact with the public. Wholesale, retail and the motor trade accounts for nearly one in six employees in the 21 to 30-year-old age group, for example, and the hotel and restaurant industry has seen an 80 per cent increase of employees in this age group over the past two decades.[7] Labour Force Survey figures show that over one third of workers in this age group are in caring, sales and elementary roles, compared with one quarter of workers aged 31 and over,[8] jobs which are likely to involve interaction with customers, clients, patients and other third-parties.

Young workers tend to hold a much weaker position in the labour market than older workers and are overrepresented in insecure work.[9] Previous TUC research has found that 40 per cent of workers on agency contracts or in casual work are aged 16-24,[10] and over half of those on zero-hour contracts are under 34 years old – with most aged 16 to 24.[11] In addition to this, median pay for a zero-hours contract worker is a third (£3.50) less an hour than for an average employee.[12] Insecure work often comes with a significant loss of workplace rights, such as the right to return to paid work after maternity leave or rights to union representation, as well as worries about pay, working hours and short-notice cancellation of shifts.[13]

This overrepresentation in public facing roles, job insecurity, and lack of workplace rights are important factors when considering young workers’ experiences of third-party harassment and their ability to report or to not report it to their employer.

Methodology

The TUC gauged the impact of third-party harassment on young workers through polling through YouGov and a survey of mainly young trade union members to capture their experiences, and in order to get a clearer picture of the scale and frequency of harassment at work. The key themes across the polling and the survey are highlighted in this report.

Polling

The TUC commissioned a poll of 4660 workers carried out between 20th – 26th November 2018[14] about their experiences of bullying, harassment and violence at work. 1411 of these were aged 18 to 34 (30 per cent)[15]. Of these, 261 reported that they had experienced some form of harassment, abuse or violence from a third-party at work.

The poll asked respondents about their experiences of bullying, sexual harassment, verbal abuse and physical assault or violence (type, frequency, perpetrator), how recently they had experienced it, whether they reported the most recent experience, the reasons why they did not report, and the impacts the incident or incidences have had on them and their work.

Survey

In a TUC survey carried out in August 2018, we asked 16 to 35-year-olds about their experiences of third-party harassment. The survey asked respondents about their age, sector, contract type, trade union membership, incidence of harassment, the perpetrator of the harassment, whether they reported the incident or incidences to their employer, whether the situation got better, got worse or stayed the same as a result of reporting it, and the impacts the incident or incidences have had on them and their work. The TUC received 464 responses, 408 of which were specifically about third-party harassment, abuse or violence.

The TUC cascaded the survey via its affiliated members, who encouraged further participation from their young member structures. This led to a disproportionate number of respondents who reported third-party harassment being trade union members – nearly 90 per cent of the 408 survey responses. The number of 16 to 35-year-old employees who are members of a trade union or staff association is 15.1 per cent,[16] with higher trade union membership in the public sector and amongst larger employers. Therefore, the survey disproportionally represents the experiences of young trade union members. It is likely that the trade unions that have undertaken campaigns on this issue promoted the survey to its members.

Nearly 80 per cent of the survey respondents reported that they work in retail (excluding wholesale and motor trade) – again, reflecting the channels by which the survey was publicised. Due to the overrepresentation of young retail workers in the survey, nearly 88 per cent of respondents reported a customer as the main perpetrator of third-party harassment. The job titles, industries and age brackets reported by survey respondents can be found alongside their testimonies.

The survey is therefore not a representative sample of the experiences of young workers. Instead it aimed to capture the testimonies of young workers who had experienced third-party harassment, abuse or violence, particularly their experience of reporting or not reporting it to their employer, and the impact this had on them.