Night time workers can face challenges getting home at the end of their shift – ranging from financial cost to actual physical danger – but momentum is now gathering behind political work to improve their safe transport options.
Last week, Glasgow City Council agreed a motion in support of the Unite union’s ‘Get Me Home Safely’ campaign, broadly endorsing the need for fresh effort on late night transport provision, and committing the council to pursuing various means towards that end.
The GCC motion did not – as reported elsewhere – seek to create an explicit requirement for employers to pay for late-night employees’ transport home as a condition of their licence. However, that ‘employer pays’ notion is still out there in the political wild, and likely to form the core of a Members’ Bill currently being prepared by Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman.
The Full GCC Motion, which was unanimously passed with SNP/Labour Amendments, said that the duty of care employers have for employees must extend to take into consideration their welfare at the end of shifts, in particular for those ending at un-social hours.
The Motion suggests that GCC will:
- Fully support Unite’s ‘Get me Home Safely’ campaign, and instruct relevant officers in Licensing, Transport and Community Safety to design an implementation plan to meet the aims of this campaign;
- Work with existing industry representatives such as Best Bar None to include these aims in best practice guidance and encourage uptake across the sector. Council will also look to learning from other examples such as the Mayor of London’s Women’s Night Safety Charter;
- Respond to the Licensing Board’s policy consultation supporting further work to have free transport offered to workers getting home safely after 11pm by licence holders;
- Support the introduction of legal requirements for training transport workers on preventing gender-based violence, sexual assault and harrassment on public transport and private hire vehicles;
- Work with all transport partners, including SPT, Scotrail, Bus operators through the Glasgow Bus Partnership, the Bus Service Improvement Partnership, and others, to facilitate the provision of more frequent and safer public transport options at night, including an extension to Subway opening hours;
- Include the realisation of additional night services in the Council’s assessment of the Bus Governance options available to it;
- Investigate innovative approaches to providing workplace and community transport routes to improve worker safety and reduce the ecological impact of commuting. Council will therefore also support efforts for the municipal ownership of buses in order to lower prices and improve service provision, especially for night-time and off-peak services, and seek to include late-shift workers in work being undertaken on free public transport pilots;
- Note that the recommendations of the UK Task and Finish Group on Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing are already in progress or being exceeded in Glasgow and that our Licensing Committee continues to lead the way on these matter in Scotland. Council will continue to work constructively with the Scottish Government, Glasgow Taxi trade and its representatives, and Unite the Union to improve minimum standards.
Unite worked with city councillors Eunis Jassemi, Holly Bruce and Anthony Carroll to pass the motion in Glasgow. Since the Unite campaign was launched in 2021, schemes have been introduced by Edinburgh City Council, East Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, Falkirk and Dundee.
Mr Carroll said: “I’m delighted that Glasgow City Council passed our motion supporting Unite’s Get Me Home Safely campaign unanimously. The aims of the campaign and my motion hopes to bring a duty of care for night time workers to the forefront of the night time economy.
“We need to reshape the culture of harassment and abuse that is endemic particularly within hospitality, and also make our transport network cater better for those who cater for us in the night time economy. The duty of care of employers to make sure their employees are getting home safe from work is also key to what this motion is calling for.
“I have had bar workers get in touch saying how they’ve been stranded in the city centre waiting on their own for a taxi, feeling unsafe,” said Mr Carroll. “I hope this encourages the licensing board to further emphasise to employers the need for that duty of care for employees after a shift that ends late at night.
“Unite have been bringing the campaign to chambers across country, and with Maggie Chapman MSP crafting a bill in support of their aims nationally, I hope to see this replicated everywhere so that all workers can feel they can get home safe after work at night.”
Bryan Simpson, national organiser for Unite Hospitality, added: “This is a huge step forward for Glasgow’s late night workforce who have had to chose between walking home and spending two hours wages on a taxi home for far too long now.
“Unite will not stop until this impossible choice is made a thing of the past.”
The campaign was prompted by the case of Unite member Caitlin Lee, who was assaulted on her way home from a shift at a hotel in Glasgow city centre. She said her employer hadn’t accepted any responsibility for her safety, so she left the job.
“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other worker, which is why we launched Get Me Home Safely,” said Caitlin. “For this campaign to succeed we need buy-in from employers, workers and politicians.
“It’s about ensuring all late-night workers get safe transport home, so they don’t have to suffer financial consequences having to pay for a taxi or get a late-night bus that might not be safe or even walk home.
“This month there’s going to be so many people enjoying hospitality,” she added. “Workers shouldn’t be compromised financially or their safety compromised to provide that service.”
