Over a century fighting to close the gender pay gap

Date:
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
We celebrated International Women's Day #IWD 8 March. For over a century the workers' movement has campaigned to fight against discrimination between men and women and for gender equality. We have achieved a lot. But the pay gap remains. In the EU it is over 17%. Women are disproportionately employed in low paid sectors, are still doing double or triple shifts, carrying out most domestic work and caring for family members. We focused this year's IWD action on the impact of austerity on public services. This has hit women workers hard. Together with the focus on closing the pay gap it was part of the #OurPayRise campaign of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

And there are other areas where progress can be made. It is women who are faced with sexual harassment at work and domestic violence. These are expressions of inequality and injustice. For us in EPSU addressing inequalities between men and women, reducing the gender pay gap and defending women's rights are permanent priorities, not just on International Women's Day. The mobilization of women and also men in many countries on the 8 March to stop work in the early afternoon to signal that women should not work for free is an example of what can be done to push the issue higher up the agenda. More measures are of course possible. We expect concrete legislative steps in the European Commission's proposals to improve work-life balance. These are now long overdue.

European leaders continue to disagree over a project that should take Europe forward bring jobs and deliver new and strengthened rights. We will argue for Another Europe in which exploitation of workers is addressed, and gender equality achieved. That Europe can be an example.

Other issues addressed in this newsletter: an update on the situation in Turkey with a strong condemnation from many organisations and institutions of violations of human and trade union rights. Our Greek colleagues have researched the impact of austerity on asylum and refugee services. There are reports from the Russian-Central Asian constituency and the whistleblower action in our National Administration standing committee.