Not allowing heavily pregnant woman to use a loo

Its years since I worked in retail as a student so the law must have changed.

However, then, we would allow someone to use the loo in an emergency BUT they would be escorted there by the staff who'd wait outside the loo door and escort them back through the shop.

This gets around the 'stealing' as they are often located off rooms where staff leave their bags etc and have their lunch.

I honestly think that now, I'd have taken a risk and escorted a desperate woman to the loo.

The odds of losing your job are remote if you take someone to the loo and back out.

Often because it's all they can afford, but also often so they don't have to deal with issues like people using the toilets for drug use, and other nefarious purposes. When I was a student working in a shop, two people got thrown out for having sex in the loos! The staff shouldn't have to deal with stuff like that!

Co-ops aren’t generally very big. In order to change their policy they would have to reconfigure the layout of all the staff toilets so a member of the public can use the toilet without any access to back of house, no access to staff possessions, no access to high value stock items, no access to staff data, and be accessible so a member of staff would not have to solely accompany a member of the public in a private area for their own safety.

I don’t think this is viable for most co-ops so I don’t think you can say they are not adhering to their values. I am sorry for your position and I can definitely sympathise, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not with someone’s job to allow you to use the toilet, or to expect the store to change the location of the staff toilet (which often is impossible).

Our policy is that a pregnant woman or toddler weeing on the floor is less dangerous than taking them out the back and waiting for them.
A sudden wet floor needing mopped is a hazard.
In other words we use common sense. The men I work with have children so understand the sudden need. They also have wives who breastfed so we can cope with that too!

Absolutely this. When I worked in retail in the 90s/early 00s we regularly let people use the staff loos, and that was in national chains. It's probably not allowed now.

I now live abroad. I have a preexisting bladder issue and am now pregnant, but only 2nd trimester so baby isn't exacerbating it yet. I'm lucky in that there are lots of public toilets here, and if there's not one around its always easy to find a cafe I can pop into. I do usually buy a drink out of courtesy. But I have no doubt that if I needed to use a staff loo, they'd let me. There are just as many rules and regulations about insurance, health and safety etc here. People are just kinder, more practical, less rules obsessed and jobsworth-y and more trusting. It's an attitude difference, not a legal difference.

Sorry you went through that OP.

Possibly your combined small business policy is different to a large corporation like Co-op? That specialist employers liability insurance is required when thousands of people are on the payroll? That safety and training have to be in place and demonstrably adhered to in order for the policy to be valid?

@pikkumyy77 when you rely on your job to keep a roof over your head, you're hardly going to risk it to let someone use the toilet 🙄

Why would a shop take out an insurance policy like that?

Maybe write to Head Office to explain the situation and ask how your treatment aligns with their values. Stress that you are not complaining about an individual member of staff but about the policy itself.

Exactly this.
It's not the fault of the front line staff.

Yes, in an ideal world. but the fact is, we aren't living in an ideal world and they could lose their jobs over it! I have compassion for OP but also for the staff who may well have wanted to say yes to her but were scared of losing their living!

Absolutely. There should be adequate public facilities in all towns and villages.
Sadly, people are dirty bastards and they cost a fortune to keep cleaning and repairing.
We need a campaign to bring back public toilets.
And another one to teach people not to be filthy animals smearing their shit everywhere.

Then take it up with head office, don't complain that a minimum wage staff member wouldn't risk their job to let you use the toilet 🙈

Clearly you've never been pregnant or you'd understand how much stress it puts on a woman's body.

Of course staff should be free to do what is right and humane. What a passive lot you are! See an injustice? Challenge an injustice!

YABU it’s not all about you. You aren’t staff and it’s not a public toilet. I say this as someone who has been pregnant with twins, who ended up with a combined weight of 12 pounds plus 2 plus placentas and 2 sacs. I clearly needed the toilet a fair amount of the time

No I don’t think shops should let customers use the staff toilet, as PPs said, it’s an insurance thing. It’s worth asking but not to get angry at them saying no.

You should have preempted that you may need the loo before getting home and either - gone home after school run and back out, or asked at the school to use theirs.

So are you going to complain to the Co op then?

I agree, that there should be more flexibility, and it is most often women who lose out with these strict policies, but the OP seems to think the staff should have been flexible in her situation right now, when they could have gotten into a lot of trouble for doing so. So, absolutely we should campaign to change things, in the future, but I don't think the staff can be accused of not caring or having no morals because they don't want to lose their jobs based on how things stand right now!

Why are we all so accepting and passive?

It doesn’t have to be the “reality of being pregnant” if the law insisted on the provision of decent facilities.

I'm disabled (use a wheelchair) and have IBS.

It's very rare these days that shops etc will let you use staff loos.

Tena pads are the way to go.

There are many people with problems with continence and this website can be useful.

www.toiletmap.org.uk

You can't be flexible with policies. That's why they have policies. Same with any other industry.

Use some Attends.

Sorry but you’re not the only woman that’s been there. Would you expect a random homeowner to open up and let you in to use the bathroom?

I work in retail, we do on occasion let customers use our loos. But one of us has to escort them and wait outside the toilet door and escort them back.
When a delivery has come in, it's no.
When it'd leave one person alone on the shop floor, it's a no.