Memorandum by the Equal Opportunities
Commission (EOC)
The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) welcomes
the opportunity to respond to the inquiry of the House of Lords
European Union Select Committee into the European Commission's
Annual Policy Strategy for 2008.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
The EOC welcomes the European Commission's focus
on major challenges such as energy and climate change, the Lisbon
Agenda for growth and jobs and migration. In particular the EOC
welcomes the fact that as a follow-up measure to the European
Year of Equal Opportunities for All the Commission plans to extend
and reinforce its equal opportunities policy such as:
— Initiatives to combat discrimination
outside the labour market (based on gender, religion, belief,
disability, age or sexual orientation);
— Initiatives aimed at the reconciliation
of family and professional life; and
— Promoting and protecting fundamental
rights, including action regarding the rights of the child.
Discrimination and inequality still persist.
The European Commission's 2007 annual report on equality between
women and men (COM (2007) 49 final) for example revealed that
despite progress, major gaps of inequality between women and men
remain: women on average in the EU still earn less than 15 per
cent than men for every hour worked.
Urgent action is needed to speed up progress
towards greater gender equality and it is particularly important
that gender equality is mainstreamed into the Commission's Policy
Strategy. This has not been done fully so far, which means that
the EC appears not to have fully complied with its own guidance
on how equality should be addressed.
In practice, mainstreaming of gender equality
into would EC's Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 would involve
linking it to the initiatives announced in the 2006-2010 roadmap
for equality between women and men (COM (2006) 92 final) and the
evidence from the 2007 annual report. Progress on initiatives
announced for 2007 needs to be secured, such as:
— Gender equality manuals for actors
involved in the open method of coordination on pensions, social
inclusion, health and long-term care.
— Communication on gender pay gap.
— New Gender Equality Index.
WE would also like to see the policy strategy
refer to the launch of the new European Gender Institute and to
publication of a report on the state of implementation of the
Roadmap (which is something promised in the Roadmap document).
GENDER DIMENSION
OF THE
LISBON STRATEGY
The European Commission was right to stress
in the Roadmap that the gender dimension of the Lisbon strategy
for jobs and growth must be strengthened. This should be reflected
in the 2008 Policy Strategy. National Action Plans and evaluation
by the European Commission should clearly include measures and
recommendations in this field.
Women workers are the key to the productivity
challenge facing all Member States.
But women across Europe are still being prevented
from making full use of their potential because of discrimination,
stereotyping and difficulties of combining work and caring. It
is regrettable that the Green Paper on modernising labour law
(COM (2006) 708) does not make this crucial link between gender
equality, increasing productivity and developing labour law and
workplaces that are fit for the 21st Century.
The Commission announced in the Roadmap that
it aims to reinforce implementation of a gender perspective in
the impact assessment of Community policies and legislation. The
consultation and subsequent measures on modernising of labour
law is one of the areas were a gender impact assessment should
inform and shape new policies. This is also important in relation
to policy developments in the area of migration as mentioned in
the 2008 Policy Strategy.
FLEXIBLE WORKING—EXCHANGING
BEST PRACTICE
The EOC's new report Working Outside the Box[32]
has uncovered a massive waste of talent across the workforce.
6.5 million people in Britain today could use their skills more
fully if more flexible working was available, either by working
at a level at which they used to work or simply returning to the
workforce. Often considered a problem limited to working mothers,
the EOC's new findings show that this "skills drain"
affects almost as many men as women, and more non-parents than
parents.
The report also shows that pioneering employers
are responding by transforming their work culture. Flexitime and
home working are particularly popular and new technology is enabling
companies to become more innovative in how they organise work.
In return, employers are benefiting from better staff engagement
and loyalty, meeting increasing customer demand for 24/7 products
and services, and raising productivity.
The 2008 Policy Strategy refers to "flexicurity",
but the European Commission could take more initiatives by for
example encouraging the exchange of best practice amongst employers,
trade unions and Governments across the EU. Too often flexible
working is seen as a "mummy track" of low paid, lower
skilled part time jobs. The European Commission could identify
innovative working, different sorts of flexible working across
the EU and encourage the opening up of flexible working for senior
management and higher skilled jobs. The European Commission could
also look into the feasibility of introducing, or encouraging
Member States to introduce, the right to request flexible working,
already successfully introduced in the UK, for workers across
the European Union as part of the Lisbon strategy for jobs and
growth.
HUMAN RESOURCES
At the end of the document the 2008 Policy Strategy
sets out the general framework for human resources. The EOC believes
that the European Commission should make a reference in this paragraph
to initiatives on incorporating equality between women and men
into the human resource management policies of the Commission
(as set out in Annex III of the Roadmap) such as the external
evaluation of the 4th Action Programme and recommendations for
the future in 2008, adoption of annual targets for the recruitement
and appointment of women to management posts at A*/AD level and
the improvement of awareness-raising campaigns and training.
I hope the Select Committee finds this useful.
Do get in touch if EOC can be of any further help.
Tijs Broeke
European & Public Affairs Manager
20 April 2007
32 For more information see: http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=17704 Back
| 
