Great Britain: Nissan commits to supporting female employees during menstruation

Since 09 March more than 500 staff at the Japanese carmaker Nissan’s plant in the UK’s north-east region of Sunderland will have access to free sanitary protection in the company’s toilets. The car giant has just joined a local UK trade union (Unite) campaign. Called the ‘Period Dignity Campaign, it was launched during the summer of 2019 and aims to encourage all employers to make sanitary protection freely available in toilet facilities, just like toilet paper. Another key point of the campaign, is to encourage businesses to clear the workplace of both the stigma women suffer during menstruation, and the discomfort felt in evoking the issue. ‘We are delighted that Nissan is the latest company to sign up to our campaign and is following in the footsteps of other landmark employers in the North-East such as Rolls Royce (car maker) in Washington (a city near Sunderland),’ underlined Unite’s regional coordinator, Suzanne Reid. ‘Unite will continue to encourage other regional and national employers to follow the lead set by Nissan in the weeks and months ahead,’ she promised.