TATA STEEL has said it would investigate complaints that security guards at its plant in Port Talbot, Wales, were denied access to legitimate comfort breaks.
Its assurance to take action comes after a media report said security guards at the plant’s main gates were disallowed toilet breaks during their 12-hour shifts and forced to “urinate in bottles”.
Quoting current and former guards, ITV said they were given just a 40-minute break during their “gruelling” working hours and their requests for cover to go to the loo were “almost always” declined.
Guards working at the site are employees of Corps Security but answer to the head of security employed by the Tata company.
A guard who previously worked at the plant said he had difficulties in getting cover to go to the loo.
“A lot of the guards in the control posts were actually weeing in bottles because they knew they couldn't go and then trying to discard it wherever they could,” he told the television network.
He claimed he soiled himself and the management removed him from the site.
"It's an embarrassment, it's not something you like to admit, you just feel as if you're inhumane. I kept ringing and ringing and asking ‘please, can someone come down to take the post so that I can go across to the centre and go to the loo’ and I just kept being told 'no, no there's no one coming down you're just going to have to wait”.
"I had to leave the post and the following day, when I went in, I was told that the Tata Steel security manager had looked through the CCTV, seen that I was twelve minutes going across to the loo and coming back, and told Corps Security to site remove me," the guard who is now employed elsewhere, said.
According to the report, a current employee too shared similar grievances.
However, Tata Steel said it outsourced its security services to a third party supplier, which was responsible for ensuring the wellbeing of its staff, including appropriate breaks.
“We have contacted the relevant contract company and are seeking answers on these matters. We will conduct an investigation and act on any findings,” the company said in a statement.
Corps Security, however, admitted that the issue of breaks was raised earlier this year.
"In March this year, a member of the security team working at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot site raised the issue of access to comfort breaks. We investigated and canvassed the wider team for feedback but no one else mentioned this as a concern. Shortly afterwards, the individual moved to work on another site managed by Corps Security," its spokesperson told ITV.
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