We all know about the shortage of workers in the construction trades. In fact, it’s safe to say most of you have probably been impacted by a scarcity of workers to run your portable restroom service routes in recent years. Provincial officials in Ontario, Canada, think they have identified one way to build the workforce by attracting and retaining more women filling the ranks: better portable sanitation.

As safety and sanitation regulations go, Canadian governments have blazed new trails in the past, beefing up requirements for heated winter restrooms, hand-wash stations and more situations where flushing toilets are needed. And with new rules under consideration, Ontario is set to raise the bar again for construction site portable sanitation this month.

The changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act first proposed in the spring call for a women-only restroom on every construction site, doubling the number of restrooms on work sites, requiring adequate lighting and, when no running water is available, hand sanitizer, and ensuring that all restrooms are completely enclosed for privacy.

The effort is aimed at improving the conditions of restrooms that were found to be lacking in a recent Ministry of Labor bathroom inspection “blitz.” But the greater impetus for the new rules is attracting and retaining more women to the construction industry, which officials say is the best way to solve the worker shortages.

Changes like these have the potential to help PROs in both Canada and the U.S. bring in new revenue. But perhaps more importantly, tighter regulations could help the sanitation industry erase persistent negative perceptions about using portable restrooms.

WOMEN IN THE TRADES

According to Ontario’s labor minister, Monte McNaughton, only 10% of Ontario’s 600,000 construction workers are women. In news accounts, he said the number of women registering for construction apprenticeships is up 28% year over year. Officials have said 100,000 new construction trades workers are needed by 2030, and they set a goal to raise the number of women in construction jobs from 4.5% to 15% by the same date.

“Access to a washroom is a basic human dignity and something every worker should have the right to,” McNaughton said in a report. “Careers in construction offer six-figure salaries with pensions and benefits, and it is an injustice only 10% of them are filled by women.”

McNaughton and labor leaders are banking on better sanitary conditions as one way to improve hiring and retention of women in these important jobs. They have heard many anecdotal accounts — both from women and men — about insufficient numbers of restrooms and inadequate service of the units. So the government visited more than 1,800 construction sites and found 244 violations of existing sanitation laws, mostly for having no restrooms on site, a lack of privacy for users of restrooms and restrooms that weren’t serviced properly.

According to Ontario officials, about 50% of women leave the construction trades after four years. They think the lack of quality portable sanitation service is a contributing factor for the turnover.

Women workers have reached out to confirm poor conditions and to ask for women-only restrooms on job sites. One of them, Mahee de Repentigny, posted a video to McNaughton’s Twitter feed after he asked women to share their horror stories.

EXISTING RULES

“It’s just a big pile of feces. No flushing, no water, no soap, no paper, no nothing. Might as well just go outside at that point,” she said. Among other complaints, some women said doors were missing from restrooms or the restroom doors wouldn’t lock to ensure privacy. Poor conditions aren’t fair for women or men, and McNaughton said the new requirements will help the situation.

“In what other industry would this be acceptable? These are men and women, not livestock, and it’s important that they get the respect that they deserve,” he said. “If we’re going to encourage men and women into the skilled trades, then we need to ensure that we have proper facilities for them to use.”

It’s not as if Ontario doesn’t have stringent portable sanitation requirements already for construction sites. The Occupational Health and Safety Act regulation 213/91 currently calls for:

When possible, flushing portable restrooms are required unless it is not reasonably possible. Units must have self-closing doors that can be locked from the inside, should be adequately heated when possible, include adequate ventilation and lighting and include a receptacle for sanitary napkins if used in women’s restrooms.

For drop tank units, the minimum number required is one for up to 10 workers, two for up to 20 workers, three for up to 30 workers and so on.

Units shall have a wash basin with running water, both hot and cold “if reasonably possible,” with soap or hand cleanser and hand dryers or paper towels.

Units to be used in men’s restrooms must include a urinal for each restroom.

KEEP IT CLEAN

Certainly requiring a women-only restroom on all construction sites would be a game-changer for restroom operators. You could outfit a number of your construction units with gender badging, a few convenience options directed toward women users, as well as the removal of a urinal that I have heard is a source of complaints for women who use restrooms.

The women’s unit and overall doubling the required units would add revenue to every order. It would also take some pressure off each restroom, which would curtail some of those overuse complaints. PROs often tell me customers tend to want to under-order numbers of restrooms as well as numbers of services each month to reduce costs. These changes will help you avoid some of the inevitable disagreements about what is considered adequate service on job sites.

And hopefully the result would be cleaner restrooms and a cleaner reputation for the portable sanitation industry. Make no mistake, we still have a long road ahead to convince the average person that portable restrooms provide a clean and dignified experience when permanent bathroom facilities aren’t available. But hopefully the Canadians are leading the way to improvements on construction sites. Our hardworking tradespeople deserve the best service we can give them.