Another Unite win in hospitality

One of the biggest councils in the country, Glasgow City Council, has backed Unite the union’s Get Me Home Safely campaign the union announced today (Friday).

Glasgow City Council is the eighth and largest local authority so far to call on employers to provide safe and free transport home for all workers past 11 pm. 

Unite says that because there are often no safe public transport options late at night, its members are spending the equivalent of two hours’ wages on getting home safely from work.

Hailing the move, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “Unite’s campaign is clocking up support in council after council as we press for the safe-keeping of shift workers, many of whom are women workers, who do not have a safe route home.

“The support of Glasgow City Council is an important milestone and we call on other local authorities to follow suit.

“Unite will not stop until the impossible choice of staying safe or saving wages is made a thing of the past.”

The Get Me Home Safely campaign brings together hospitality and passenger transport members. It was launched in 2021 by Unite after union member Caitlin Lee was sexually assaulted walking home from work after her employer – a five star hotel chain – refused to provide her a taxi home after a 12 am finish.

Caitlin Lee, organiser for Unite Hospitality, added, “Workers are being placed in an horrible situation because there are just too few safe and affordable options for getting home at night.

“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other worker, which is why there must be change. The backing of Glasgow council, a city with a huge hospitality sector, is really important. Now we need to see that translate into safe transport home.”

As well as organising workers to win safe and free transport home from employers, Unite’s campaign seeks to encourage local authorities to make safe and free transport home for late night workers a requirement for new and extended alcohol licences. 

The campaign has already been backed by councils in Sheffield, Newcastle, Edinburgh, East Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, Falkirk and Dundee where workers are already starting to see the benefits of safe and free transport home past the last bus, train or tram.

Nearly six in 10 workers (58 per cent) report that their employers have never provided them with safe transport home after work, a Unite poll revealed earlier this year.

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Watch the short film to support the Get Me Home Safely campaign here 

By UNITElive team