Teleworking and gender violence: the "new" occupational risk brought by COVID-19

May 31 2020 (11:45 WEST)

"The legal approach to addressing the issue of gender in law should not be that of identity-difference between women and men, but hierarchy. First there is oppression, subordination and then, consequently, differences."

                                                                                                                                         Catherine Mackinon

 

The health crisis, the quarantine and the home work linked to the multiple social reforms derived from COVID-19, have an unquestionable gender impact that translates into a greater damage for women, whether formal or informal workers, and not only from a labor point of view but also health, personal, social and family (1). A close precedent is the Ebola virus, which showed how quarantine significantly affects women's work activity and affects and widens gender gaps (2).

Confinement is a public health protection measure, but its impact on people is not neutral, from a gender perspective. Households have become a multidisciplinary space for socialization, where people are educated, cared for and at the same time the so-called "productive" work is carried out, and this has had a direct effect on the "unproductive" work of care, exacerbating it. On the other hand, also beyond households, women have been more exposed to contagion of the disease (3). They statistically occupy a higher percentage in the professionalized work of care, domestic service and are more unemployed and economically vulnerable. Therefore, international organizations such as the WHO, IMF, OECD or ILO, in addition to the UN, warn and insist on the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in all policies, programs or measures to combat COVID-19. As UN Women points out: "the coronavirus hits women three times, for health, for domestic violence and for caring for others" (4).

One of the first labor measures, derived from RD-L 8/2020, was to establish, as a priority, "remote work". This has turned homes into improvised "work centers", mostly teleworking, where ICTs catalyze new forms of performance execution while generating new rights and obligations and, also, new emerging occupational risks in an occupational context far removed from the traditional one. The measure, despite historical employer resistance, has been well received and everything indicates that it is here to stay. It has made visible the advantages linked to another way of working that promotes conciliation and facilitates the personal management of time, reduces production costs and even pollution. However, teleworking also has its gender gap and can be very harmful if limits are not set and the fundamental rights of the worker are preserved (privacy, digital disconnection, etc.), or if business obligations in terms of prevention of work risks (ergonomic, psychosocial, etc.) are neglected, which do not disappear by teleworking.

Confinement is a public health protection measure, but its impact on people is not neutral, from a gender perspective.

The new panorama of "domestic productivity" recognized by the GDP, will have a differentiated gender impact, because it will expose teleworkers to other occupational risks that go beyond those conceived under the male pattern. Gender violence, together with other occupational risks, debuts, in its domestic version, in the labor context of teleworking and is placed among the emerging gender risks of the 21st century, which arrived with COVID-19 and its confinement. Although this risk has always been there, its incidence was as scarce as the underutilization of teleworking in Spain (5), but the rise of home work will require a different look in a discipline that must adapt to the occupational health of the entire population, and not just half of it.

These "new" business obligations are legally supported, in addition to internal regulations (6), especially in international tools such as Convention No. 190 (2019) on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work, in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Istanbul Convention and also with EU Directives 2006/54 and 89/391.

Convention 190 (7) protects the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment and recognizes that such behaviors may constitute a violation of human rights. The protection extends to any event that occurs during work, in connection with work or as a result of work and its provisions cover professional communications that take place through ICTs. Specifically, Article 3 a) literally provides:

"This Convention applies to violence and harassment in the world of work that occurs during work, in connection with work or as a result of work: a) in the workplace, including public and private spaces when they are a workplace (?)"

In addition, it broadly defines violence and harassment as "a range of unacceptable behaviors and actions" that "aim to cause, cause or are likely to cause physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm." This includes physical or verbal abuse, intimidation and harassment, sexual harassment, threats and stalking. Its subjective scope is very broad and is linked to work (formal or informal) of any kind. In its introduction, it expressly refers to the disproportionate impact of violence and harassment on women and girls and the need for:

"An inclusive and integrated approach that takes into account gender considerations and addresses the underlying causes and risk factors, including gender stereotypes, multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination and the abuse of power relations on the basis of gender."

Therefore, the expansion of teleworking and the mutation of homes into "work centers" will require, when the exception contained in Article 5 RD-L 8/2020 loses its validity, occupational risk assessments adapted by reason of sex, where gender violence is taken into account as an occupational risk that workers should be trained and informed about and adopt all reasonable preventive measures to avoid it.

Similarly, gender threatens teleworkers more in the preservation of their right to privacy and their private life. This is because they are more exposed to harassment on the grounds of sex or gender in the workplace. The misuse of remote monitoring and control software can become new tools of harassment and intrusion into women's privacy.

In conclusion, we can assert that the health crisis derived from COVID-19 has brought with it not only the accelerated extension of a new form of work organization from homes, but also emerging gender occupational risks, to which workers are more exposed because they are women. This will require changes in the risk prevention policies of companies that implement teleworking, but, above all, it will require a new gender perspective in the design, implementation and control of preventive action.

By Gloria Poyatos, Magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands. Article published in Huffingtonpost

References

1. Women make up 70% of health personnel. They assume the greatest burden of domestic and care work after the closure of educational centers and present greater vulnerability to the paralysis of activity, as well as a greater risk of violence, abuse or harassment in times of quarantine and crisis. OECD report, April 2020. Available at: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=127_127000-awfnqj80me&title=Women-at-the-core-of-the-fight-against-COVID-19-crisis

2. Clare Wenham, Julia Smith, Rosemary Morgan, on behalf of the Gender and COVID-19 Working Group?, "COVID-19: the gender impacts of the outbreak", published: 06/03/2020 DOI. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2.

3. In Spain, women represent 66% of health personnel, reaching 84% in the case of nursing. "The gender perspective, essential in the response to COVID-19", Women's Institute, May 7, 2020. Available at: http://www.inmujer.gob.es/diseno/novedades/IMPACTO_DE_GENERO_DEL_COVID_19_(uv).pdf

4. https://news.un.org/es/story/2020/03/1471872

5. In 2019, in Spain only 4.9% of the total number of employed people usually worked from home and 3.5% did so sometimes. 91.6% never used teleworking. "Teleworking at the crossroads. Analysis and proposals" Study Service of the UGT Confederation of May 26, 2020.

6. Article 13.4 ET in relation to articles 4 and 15 of the LOIEMH and 5.4 LPRL.

7. Whose ratification process has already been initiated by Spain. https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/serviciosdeprensa/notasprensa/trabajo14/Paginas/2020/020320-ministra.aspx

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