(24 September 2009, Brussels) “EPSU agrees that the economic crisis is the main medium term challenge. It means first to monitor the possible differentiated impact on women and men on the labour market, including the public sector which employs 1 out of 3 women in the EU”. This was the headline statement of the EPSU contribution to the European Commission’s consultation on the Road-Map for Equality between men and women 2006-2010 and follow up strategy.

The contribution will form the public service perspective of the ETUC formal submission to the Commission.

On future strategy, the EPSU submission calls for:
 an obligation for the employers to provide gendered data on remuneration, including part-time workers (including bonuses, profit sharing schemes, complementary pension/insurance schemes) and concrete measures on transparency of wages (all the more relevant in view of the financial crisis) in cooperation with trade unions.
 Measures to combat women’s undervaluation in women-dominated sectors and occupations. A follow-up to the proposal in the roadmap to carry out a survey on job classification in health and social care, in consultation with relevant social partners, is yet to be enacted-
 measures on the proposal to encourage public authorities to promote an equality/social clause in public procurement – whilst we welcome the recently published guide on social clause in public contracts, we would favour a more binding instrument and clearer guidance from the Commission on promotion of contract compliance with equality measures.

The submission also outlines some of the legislative initiatives over the period 2006-2010 that would have benefited from a more rigorous gender policy assessment, including:

The information and consultation of employees which did not include a gender dimension.

The revision of the working time directive: EPSU and ETUC long argued that the Commission’s proposal failed to meet its purpose in improving work/life balance through, amongst others, combating long working hours culture.

Parental leave: whilst not substituting to the mandate of the social partners, more support from the Commission on a right to paid parental leave (and to paid paternity leave) would have helped achieve a better outcome of the negotiations on revision of the parental leave agreement.

Patients’ mobility draft directive: no gender impact assessment of the proposal has been carried out. As health care is a major employer of women, it would be interesting to examine the extent to which the proposed directive will help reduce healthcare access inequalities between women and men.

Selected recommendations:
 the need for systematic gender mainstreaming of all EU policies including better regulation of financial markets.
 recognising the Value of women’s work which would partly respond to the challenge of a low-fertility/ageing society identified by the Commission.
 implementation of the EU Charter of fundamental rights and of the Protocol on SGI, if and when the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified, would contribute to forge stronger links between trade union rights, gender equality and public services.

Please read full submission (attached)

full background