Jeff Bezos is so rich that he owns his own spaceship and in June 2025 could hire the whole of Venice for his wedding.

Yet all of us have seen media reports of Amazon warehouse workers having to urinate in plastic bottles to avoid disciplinary action for failing to hit their targets.

The inability to get to a toilet when needed is not a technical problem – it a direct consequence of employers prioritising financial costs over workers’ health.

A major TUC survey in 2024 found over half (57.8 per cent) of workers did not always have the opportunity to use the toilet when they need to, with many citing a lack of breaks or access during shifts (Hazards 169).

As well as warehouse workers, the TUC found train, bus and delivery drivers and teachers can find it impossible sometimes to make a call to the loo. Women told the TUC they sometimes ‘bleed through’ because they can’t get access to toilets when menstruating.

YOU LOO-SE  A toilet is not much use if you can’t use it. Workers across the economy say they are facing no loos, no loo breaks or no chance they’d use disgusting, dirty facilities. www.hazards.org/toiletsatwork

When Hazards in 2003 asked readers ‘Who doesn’t get to go?’, it was overwhelmed with responses.

Casino workers, office workers, farm hands, security guards, hospitality staff, postal workers, immigration officers, health workers, education workers, drivers, librarians, refuse workers and factory workers were among those who said they had to keep their fingers and legs crossed at work (Hazards 81).

Not all jobs are even covered by the Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regs 1992. Tunnelling work is notorious for a lack of toilet facilities underground, with workers crapping in carrier bags and using wet wipes afterwards, rather than walking miles and climbing hundreds of steps to the nearest surface toilet.

Firefighters tackling moorland fires are often working at an incident for their entire shift – basic welfare facilities are often entirely absent, not great when members of the public are filming firefighters on their phones. Some report local charities have stepped in to provide toilets and food for workers fighting wildfires.

Work as a commercial pilot or flight attendant may seem glamorous but the reality can be very different. A 2024 report from the global union ITF warned “aviation workers have been forced to work long hours with no breaks and have soiled themselves, or have experienced urinary tract infections because of lack of access to toilets.”

On certain railway lines, train drivers may have to be seated in the cab for hours on end before they arrive at a station with a toilet. Even then, they often can’t leave the train because of fines imposed on the train companies for late arrivals.

On the entire Docklands Light Railway (DLR) train network there are only three stations with toilets. Train marshals are required to radio control in advance of reaching one of those stations, to arrange for someone to take over control of the train. If bosses think this is happening too often, the worker is called in for a ‘fact finding meeting’.

A similar situation applies for bus drivers, who can’t just park up mid-route to use a public toilet.

It is entirely possible to create timetables to allow sufficient time for loo breaks, to build more toilets on stations or bus termination points, or to redesign train drivers’ cabs with a toilet.

Sometimes – like for pilots – demanding access to a dedicated loo seems a big ask. But first class airline passengers paying premium rates get sleeper seats and their own toilets curtained off from the masses. It’s all about the money.

Pilots’ union BALPA told me that “one cargo operator didn’t have any toilets on board the plane, so they used a shopping bag.”

The call of nature doesn’t always come conveniently during scheduled breaks. But constantly delaying taking a pee can result in urinary tract infections and even kidney damage.

The long-term health implications of repeatedly having to put off having a poo are potentially serious; bowel cancer, diverticulosis (small pouches of the bowel lining protruding through the bowel wall), haemorrhoids and rectal prolapse.

For women on their period or pregnant, or for anyone with a disability, not being able to access a toilet when needed can have additional health consequences.

Overflowing toilets on building sites are a constant source of dispute between workers and contractors. But workers do kick back.

An iconic dispute during the construction of the Barbican Centre saw the union safety reps encourage workers to leave site and walk to the nearest public toilets by the Old Bailey rather than use the unhygienic on-site facilities. After two days of hundreds of workers marching between the site and the public toilets, a new toilet block miraculously appeared. 

Much more recently, I taught workers who carried out repairs on council housing.
The contractor they work for had imposed a new rule that no worker was allowed to use the toilet in the property they were working on.

This created a ridiculous situation where workers were either forced to go to the nearest café, incurring costs every time they needed to use the loo, or else drive miles to find a public toilet. As the contractor’s vans were fitted with tracking devices, workers were being pulled by management for being away from their place of work.

The UNISON safety reps got members to submit a collective grievance. The union distributed flyers with photos of the plush toilets in the company offices, alongside newspaper reports of Amazon drivers urinating in a bottle.

Management were shamed into providing portaloos on every housing estate where work was underway.

Jeff Bezos ended up being useful for something.

Top of the page

BATHROOM
BREAK

Sometimes, when you’ve got to go, you’ve really got to go. But, warns organising expert Dave Smith, while the law requires employers to provide toilets for their staff, it doesn’t give workers the right to use them. This legal absurdity is humiliating – and can also lead to serious ill-health.