Builders' sexual harassment?

[TrueToYou]

I work for local council. My office base is in the library which is undergoing a massive facelift.
As I left the building, 3 Builders (private firm undertaking the work) were standing facing the entrance. As I passed, one said "three ways".
They all laughed long and hard. I didn't look up, just ignored and moved on, but the more I think about it, the angrier I am becoming.
I see the comment as them deciding how they would share me between them. I don't think there is any doubt about that, as the long hard raucous laughter confirmed it.
Now. What to do? I'm annoyed I reacted by fiddling with my id badge, head down, hurrying on, but I guess I knew immediately a confrontation would just lead to 3 against 1 denial and gas lighting.
I'm considering making a complaint, but do not have any idea what these guys look like, other than that they were the firm's hi vis jackets.
Wwyd?

Report. Absolutely report.

If should turn out to be all totally innocent , then the process will find that out. Or, a general warning to all staff will warn them to be far more circumspect in future.

My experience has been exactly the same as LyingWitchInTheWardrobe's.

Fortunately, most of the perpetrators are a bit dim, so most of the time I would imagine they're just thinking, "shit, we've been reported" and accept it. I'm just saying that if they wanted to fight the accusation, they'd win the case.
I used to deliver plant to builders and would dread it when they were shouting things at passing girls or women. Not just because it was wrong and offensive but in case I was tarred with the same brush if an incident was reported. I'd ask the blokes who were doing it, "does this ever work? Do you ever get a positive response from them?" They said, "No. Never" and started laughing. I said, "well why do it then?" They said, "It's only a laugh, chill out for fucks sake". I said, "it won't be a laugh if you get sacked". They said, "couldn't give a fuck, I'll just go to another site".

In the spitting incident I was first told by the man's apologist manager that it had been thoroughly investigated and the man could have been clearing his throat (with deadly aim), then that spitting in the street inches from someone's feet was a tradition in his culture and in no way to be taken as an insult, though it might have looked that way to little old me, and finally, when I wasn't backing down, that I might want to drop it because the bloke might lose his job and not be able to pay his rent and then I'd feel bad and the manager might have to earn his money by being a manager rather a mate.

I think he thought he was handling it well and didn't realise for a moment that with every word he was enraging me more.

I thanked him for his concern for my conscience and went to the next level.

He's not the only one who wants to make excuses, is he?

neiljames... Can I ask if you ever offered to be a witness for these women that you've witnessed being verbally abused? Or told these men to knock it off? Or mention that it might be intimidating for women who generally do not enjoy this kind of attention?

I wouldn't hesitate to offer to be a witness if I saw this. I wouldn't concern myself with the implications for the man's family, home, nothing... because if HE doesn't, why should anybody else? They need to stop and learn that message fast.

Neil are you an employment lawyer?

Bloody hell, LimitedPeriod. I cross posted with you but I feel exactly the same.

Why is it that women working on site can resist the urge to do this, yet some men seemingly cannot?

Completely unacceptable.

I remember being harrassed on a daily basis when I was 15 and builders were working for months on a house down the road. I was really shy back then and felt so humiliated, I ended up walking a really long way round every day to avoid them. I should have told my folks looking back but I was mortified.

If it happened now I'd go fucking mental. How dare they?

Firstly, yes, I'd have backed any woman making a complaint as a witness.
Secondly, yes, I tried to stop them or discourage them from making the remarks.
Thirdly, no, I'm not an employment lawyer.

I want this kind of shit to stop right now. I'll admit that I probably wouldn't be as passionate about it if I didn't have teenage daughters. No point in lying. I don't want them exposed to this kind of crap and it needs to stop.

In the building game in particular, this is the step I'd take;
To go on site these days, you need the relevant certificates to work. I would also introduce an ethics licence which needs to be shown before going on site or applying for a job on site.(similar to the crb check)
If someone has been dismissed for inappropriate behaviour, the licence is taken away.

I don't know why I feel on the defensive, I want these people sacked and barred from working anywhere near the public.

The spitting day was a full time job Lying. And I was working pro bono

The spit was about 11am and it was finally resolved with a call from that manager at around 9pm after calls to the press office to say the gobber and his giggling mate had been sacked.

Sacked, I don't know. Removed from the job going on outside my house, I can live with.

Yes, as neil says, people can move on to other sites.

But, in today's difficult employment situation - which I don't rejoice in - people who don't conform will find it increasingly difficult to find work.

A construction worker who turns up with No Hat, No Boots has long understood that means No Job.

Like to indulge in casual abuse? No job, either. It's not really that much of a hardship, is it?

Can you imagine a man working as a parking warden or a hospital porter or a bus driver being allowed to shout sexually loaded abuse at women and girls and keep his job?

No.

Exactly.

I would also introduce an ethics licence which needs to be shown before going on site or applying for a job on site.(similar to the crb check)

neil rest assured that contractors big and small are ahead of you here.

They don't want to abuse people, but the biggest motivator is that they don't want to lose the contract and future contracts.

Arseholes will be sacked and they will have no comeback.

It's not really that much of a hardship, is it?

Sorry, I meant to say: It's not that much of a difficult lesson to learn, even if you are a Neanderthal or dim or an apologist for nasty arseholes.

My eldest daughter actually gave up her nursing course at college because of nothing being done about sexually explicit remarks towards her and her friend. A group of lads were constantly making references about their bodies every time they walked past. A male tutor quite clearly heard the remarks being made but chose to put his head down and carry on walking.
My daughter and her friend reported the intimidation to the head tutor. She asked if there was any witnesses. They named the male tutor who was walking between the girls and these dickhead lads. Later on that day she called the girls back in and said she spoke to the male tutor but he doesn't recall any of it. Bollocks. He was feet away and heard everything.
Since then, my daughters friend who stayed on the course spoke to the head tutor again and she fobbed her off with remarks about cultural differences and how they are actively working on educating some young men about acceptable ways of speaking to women.
They should have known and abided by that before they first walked in the fucking doors.
The whole episode was pure cowardice and minimising.

neiljames... Sorry if you felt you needed to defend yourself; I was just interested. That's an awful scenario that you've just posted. How can anybody excuse it?

I've had this abuse all of my life - when I was a child even (age 11). I wonder what their wives would have thought about that?

Women just don't do this. What is about some men that they just don't/won't keep their vile comments to themselves? As a mum of a daughter it makes me vicious on her behalf... and that of my niece... and actually, any woman who has been subject to this. It's not amusing, cute or in any way any kind of affirmation, it is abuse.

I don't suppose there are many building crews reading this thread but you never know. If there are men reading it who feel it is their right to catcall women and draw attention to them, well - you just won't know whether the woman you are doing this to is me, or like me, not until it is too late to save your snivelly neck because if I'm subjected to it, like LimitedPeriod, there is no amount of energy I wouldn't expend in taking you down... and I will.

If you work on one of the client sites that I manage and you do this in my hearing/sight, you will not be working there by the end of the day.

This is extremely offensive and no way were they talking about sharing sandwiches - why would that be so funny?
'They were suggesting a foursome' - no sorry it means 'vagina, anus, mouth' and in no particular order.
Oh, it takes me back to my schooldays - there was a wood merchants on the corner near the school and those lovely chaps did like to embarrass, harrass, intimidate and we were fair game, apparently, what with our school uniforms and all. Heard that phrase a few times I can tell you.
The good news is that when you get to my age (57) you're invisible and builders/lorry drivers/scaffolders/merchant bankers would no more make offensive sexist remarks to me than they would a man of my age.
Not long ago I realised this was no longer happening to me and assumed that men had grown up and now treated women and girls with respect. How sad that's not the case.
Report them.

You will note that I included merchant bankers in my list of men who would regularly cat call, whistle, shout 'get yer tits out' - I've had a few incidents with sharp-suited men outside drinking establishments to realise it's not limited to blue-collar workers, not by any means.

It's not limited to age either alsmutko because it's not about 'looks' it's about showing off and intimidating, putting women in 'their place'. Your comments about being 'fair game' demonstrates that.

The number of times as a school child I was harassed in this way and I didn't do anything, was frozen, tried to get past as quickly as possible, took the long way around to avoid them. Which other sector of society can we think of that abuses children?

I'm sure somebody will shortly be 'inspired' by this thread to post one about how "Women like wolfwhistles, who agrees?". Those of us who do not like them are deemed 'joyless' or 'jealous', I can't remember which?

alsmutko - in some respects it's WORSE now. It's being fuelled by offensive pop culture which deems sexism as perfectly acceptable.
Some industries take it seriously, some just pay lip service to the rules and half-heartedly go along with them to avoid getting in the shit or, as has already been mentioned, losing contracts.

alsmutko - I just assumed you were a cockney and it was rhyming slang.

I would report them. Twenty years or thirty years ago you could never walk past builders without being harassed but I know that they don't get away with it nowadays.

I don't care whether people behave themselves because they're well-constructed human beings or fear losing their jobs.

I just don't want a scaffolder to shout: 'Look at the jugs on that' from five storeys up.

That's about the only good thing that I'd say about the competitive employment climate we're in.

neil - Oh yeah - merchant bankers the lot of them!
But seriously though - this behaviour is absolutely not limited to the manual trades.

When I was about 19, I used to have to take files from one office, across town to another office. I had to walk past a building site and would get stuff shouted at me and wolf whistles.

I did have a word with the foreman one day and his response was 'oh, it's just the lads having a laugh'. They laughed on the other sides of their faces when I turned up the next day with a bottle of water, with blue dye in it and sprayed 3 of them in the face with it. They were extremely p@@@ed off, but to be fair when I saw them the day after, they laughed and left me alone after that.

I was working for as a trainer for an organisation where lots of the staff were men and worked out on sites and out of portacabins. I was delivering leadership workshops. The very first day, 10 blokes walked into the training room to be confronted with pictures of naked men, with lots a penises and hairy balls. I said morning and made a few comments about nice arses. It was so funny, but it led into a really good conversation about how they felt and how some of their behaviour on site can impact on women. Their behaviour changed dramatically afterwards.

Limitedperiodonly [applause].