WUNRN
Representing
more than 270 unions - 8 Million Public
Service Workers
YEARS OF WORK ON EQUAL PAY &
GENDER EQUALITY UNDER THREAT
EPSU Press Release 5 May 2011 - At its annual meeting,
the European Federation of Public Service Unions’ (EPSU) Women and Gender
Equality Committee, debated the impact that the economic crisis and the
austerity policies being imposed by Governments across Europe are having on
women workers in the public sector and on gender equality generally. The meeting
discussed the preliminary findings of EPSU commissioned research on the impact
of public sector pay and job cuts on women in four countries , which show that
the first wave of austerity measures has had a heavier burden on low paid
public sector workers’ who, in the majority of European countries, are women.
Trade unions have been at the forefront of the long campaign to secure equality
for women at work and have been instrumental in securing action to tackle the
gender pay gap and other gender based inequalities both at European and
national level. However, there are already indications that the financial and
economic crisis and the subsequent focus on slashing public spending could roll
back the important gains that have been achieved after many years of hard work.
The research found that despite the fact that women make up make up a large
part of the public sector workforce, none of the Governments concerned had
assessed the gender impact of their austerity measures to reduce public
deficits. Gloria Mills, the President of the Women and Gender Equality
Committee, said “this silent crisis is having a major impact on women - both
in terms of the threats to their jobs and also the disproportionate impact on
them of the cuts to public services and social security benefits, on which they
and their families rely. We cannot tolerate this situation. It is time for
working women to speak up and speak out and demand that Governments’ fulfill
their legal and moral obligation to ensure that their policies do not set us
back on the road to securing gender equality in the workplace and society in
general”.
EPSU has criticized the shortsighted view shown by the European Governments,
the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, whose policies are
making workers pay for a crisis they did not cause. In July 2010, EPSU urged
the European Commission to urgently carry out a gender equality impact
assessment of the ongoing cuts in public services . Those please were ignored.
The EPSU research suggests that those polices are indeed now having a
disproportionate negative impact on women. The Committee endorsed the general
EPSU position that there is an alternative to austerity – more progressive
taxation and an alternative economic model which focuses on fairness and
equality. It also echoed the concerns of the global trade union movement
regarding the attack on trade union rights, particularly in relation to
collective bargaining and the autonomy of the social partners.
The Europe 2020 Strategy and the European Commission’s Gender Equality Strategy
2010-2015 set out a number of commitments on increasing female participation in
the labour market , improving gender equality and actions to close the gender
pay gap . These commitments will be pie in the sky unless different policies
are put into place.