Major unions are getting behind decriminalisation of sex work in the UK

They're supporting giving sex workers the same rights and legal protections as other workers.

The GMB and ASLEF have come out in support of the full decriminalisation of sex work in Britain, the first major unions to do so.

A motion to the TUC conference in favour of de-criminalising sex work put forward by ASLEF has been endorsed by the GMB union.

The unions, which have a combined membership of over 600,000, are calling for the UK to adopt full decriminalisation, similar to the approach adopted by New Zealand, which since 2003 has provided sex workers with legal protections.

As it stands in the UK, it is illegal for people selling sex to share premises or organise work with others.

The unions’ backing of decriminalisation follows the recommendations of a Home Affairs Select Committee in 2016.

A meeting organised by ASLEF at the TUC conference in Brighton today called ‘workers’ rights are universal, time to include sex workers’ put forward the case for decriminalisation.

Laura Watson of the English Collective of Prostitutes argued that sex workers are no different to other workers, comparing sex work to other physical work:

“We’ve been told several times that it’s different to sell different parts of your body. So in one example, you’re selling your arms, and if you’re a sex workers, you’re selling different parts. But it’s a value judgement to say whether it’s better or worse to use different parts.”

Decriminalisation of the work would lead to better working conditions for sex workers, Watson argued: “there is violence. But the way it stands is that when sex workers report violence to the police, they are arrested for sex work themselves.” She added:

“The trade union movement has to decide whether it’s going to back workers in an industry, or back police powers and increased criminalisation against us. So please back the workers and the motion. Thank you.”

Chair of ASLEF’s Women’s Representative Committee, Debbie Raey, who chaired the fringe meeting today said that the trade union movement didn’t support sex workers currently because it “appears to offend some people’s sensibilities”. She added:

“The truth is you will never get rid of sex work and sex workers – people have been trying, and failing, for thousands of years – and we believe that sex workers, like other workers, need and deserve our protection.”

Motion 39 to the TUC conference will be heard and debated on Wednesday morning. Follow us on Twitter for updates.

LFF are covering the whole of TUC Congress – watch this space for updates. Email editor@leftfootforward.org with tips, pitches, or if there’s something we’ve missed. 

4 Responses to “Major unions are getting behind decriminalisation of sex work in the UK”

  1. Thierry Schaffauser

    Thank you ASLEF and GMB for supporting our labour rights. Thankfully the whole labour movement will support sex workers” labour rights and full decriminalisation. We have been waiting for too long.

  2. Mike Stallard

    Sex workers are not the middle class housewives and graduates shown above. Sometimes they are small girls pimped out by their mums and dads. Very often they are lonely middle aged women in thrall to a pimp who is violent and who relieves them of their money. Very often they are simply after their next drug fix.
    They need all the protection they can get. Cambridgeshire Police have mounted a drive to rescue them and they call them modern slaves.
    Would you prostitute yourself? Yuck!

  3. Jod

    Perhaps, Mike, if sex work itself is decriminalized, then we can better protect those vulnerable people who are doing sex work. How do you know the demographics of sex workers so well anyway, been having sex with little girls and abused women have you? Sure sounds like it, you absolute degenerate.

  4. Lynda

    Update: It was overwhelmingly defeated.
    “Prostitution is the glue that keeps women in their place in the capitalist system; the place of the lesser ‘worker’ upon whose unpaid or lower paid labour the system wholly relies. The ‘slave of the slave’ as James Connolly put it. Agitating for rights within prostitution is agitating for rights within slavery.” – Lynda Murphy
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/rcoi/chap06.htm

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