Prisons Services, Women & Gender Equality, Economic Policy, Sweden, Romania, Europe

(October 2016) The SNLP union representing prison staff has been organising a series of protests over serious staffing shortages and very high levels of uncompensated overtime. The prison service needs around 8000 extra staff and the union warns that this not only raises serious health and safety issues but undermines attempts at rehabilitation.

(March 2017) Marking International Women's Day with a focus on the gender pay gap, both EPSU and the ETUC underlined the need for urgent action to deliver pay rises across Europe with a particular emphasis on higher increases for sectors and occupations dominated by women. Flat-rate increases, job evaluation and other measures were highlighted as part of the strategy to address the gender pay gap and low pay among women workers.

In a joint press release the ETUC and EPSU underlined the need for urgent action to tackle the gender pay gap. They were reacting to the publication of the European Commission's Action Plan which addresses eight core themes: improving the application of the equal pay principle; combating segregation in occupations and sectors; initiatives to deal with vertical segregation; reducing the care penalty; better valorizing women's skills, efforts and responsibilities; exposing inequalities and stereotypes; informing about the gender pay gap and enhancing partnerships.

The Eurofound research agency has published a new report that analyses how gender pay audits have been implemented in four countries - Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. It is based on company-level gender pay reports and reveals that there have been mixed results in terms of compliance, in the initial phase. It also highlights room for improvement in engaging employee representatives and in raising employees’ awareness.

The Vision local government union is calling for action on structural pay inequalities and wants to see women have the right to full-time and permanent employment contracts as part of a campaign to reduce the gender pay gap. The union supports the 16.02 campaign which says that with a 12% pay gap women effectively work for free every day from 16.02 to 17.00. The pay gap has narrowed slightly in recent years but on current progress it will take until 2050 to achieve equal pay.

A new report commissioned by EPSU provides an update of trends in the gender pay gap in the public services between 2010 and 2016. While the overall gender pay gap was only 0.3 percentage points lower across the whole economy and 1.6 percentage points lower in the business sector at the end of the period, it fell by 1.9 percentage points in education, 2.2 percentage points in health and social work and 2.3 percentage points in public administration. The overall pay gap was 14.9% across the whole economy in 2016 compared to 10.7% in education, 17.9% in health and social work and 9.4% in public

The ETUC has called for swift adoption of the draft directive on work-life balance as a key measure that will make a real difference to women's pay and employment prospects. According to the ETUC the Directive would strengthen rights in many member states. For example paid paternity leave of 10 days would be new in Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia, and Slovakia, while four months' paid and non-transferable parental leave would improve rights in Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. Measures on carers' lave and the right to request flexible working arrangements

Municipal workers' union Kommunal has negotiated a new two-year agreement with private care providers which includes general pay increases, additions for low-paid workers and several provisions on working time. The agreement follows the main municipal deal that provided for increases of 2% in 2018 and 2.3% in 2019 but in companies where average pay is below SEK 24000 (EUR 2330) a month in 2018 and below SEK 24480 (EUR 2380) in 2019, increases will be implemented as flat-rate amounts of SEK 490 (EUR 47) in 2018 and SEK 563 (EUR 55) in 2019. Assistant nurses will also get an extra 0.5%. Other

Many prison workers across Europe are facing longstanding problems of understaffing, overcrowding and, as a result, significantly increased risks of violence. These were common to three country case studies carried out for EPSU by researchers at the HIVA research unit at Leuven University. In the UK, Italy and Greece the situation of prison workers had deteriorated in recent years with the prison service in Greece in particular having faced the deep cuts to funding and workers' pay imposed across the whole of the public sector. While Sweden presented a contrasting case study, the evidence was

EPSU affiliates around Europe have been developing collective bargaining policies, using legal action and pushing for legislative change to help them address the persistent problem of low pay in sectors dominated by women. In a report commissioned by EPSU, She works hard for the money, and in a presentation to EPSU's Quality Employment conference,Torsten Müller, senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute, provides a number of examples from Finland, Sweden, Germany, the UK and other countries where public service trade unions have used collective bargaining to improve pay in health

Municipal workers' union Kommunal is highlighting a new report that contrasts workers' views of pay and conditions in the female-dominated care sector with those of workers in the male-dominated construction sector. In a wide range of assessments the views of care workers are much more negative than their counterparts in construction. While more than half of care workers have thought about changing jobs this applies to only 38% in construction while only 33% think that staffing levels are adequate in the care sector compared to 60% in construction. Half of care workers wouldn't recommend their

EPSU has joined with the PSI, ETUC, ITUC and other labour movement organisations in calling for an International Labour Organisation Convention against gender-based violence at the workplace. The call comes on the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which takes place on 25 November every year. A draft text is under discussion and could be agreed at the ILO conference next year although the ETUC has concerns that some European governments are trying to get the text watered down.

The Kommunal municipal workers' union has decided not to follow the wage coordination policy agreed by the LO trade union confederation. The union says that urgent action is needed to tackle staff shortages in childcare, health and other welfare services and that if it followed the LO target then workers in those sectors would only get an extra SEK 17 (EUR1.60). For Kommunal it is also important to address low pay in sectors dominated by women and the LO guideline would reduce the gender pay gap by only 0.1%.