Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-17-Speech-4-009"
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"en.20080117.3.4-009"2
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"Mr President, the Commission warmly welcomes the motion for a resolution on the role of women in industry. I congratulate the rapporteur, Ms Figueiredo, on addressing this issue of the situation and role of women in industry, which is complex. One of the several reasons is that, as shown in the report, the gender equality challenges in industry are even more acute than in other sectors.
As I stressed, the issue of women in industry also reflects the general situation of industry in Europe. The Commission will continue to pursue all the necessary policies to face up to globalisation, ensure a future for industry in the Member States and help workers of both sexes when the companies for which they work are restructured.
European laws on employee information and consultation, social dialogue and the European Social Fund are all instruments designed to achieve this. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, launched in 2007, will provide assistance of up to EUR 500 million per year and its rules provide specifically for gender equality to be taken into account. The Commission is, therefore, responding to all the challenges identified by the report on the role of women in industry by taking measures of various kinds: improving equality, working conditions and the role of women in industry, combating stereotypes, creating better conditions for reconciling work and family life and providing general support for companies and workers in industrial sectors in difficulty.
I should like to make a personal statement: I sincerely support this way of tackling the difficulties in this specific area.
In industry, the problems of working conditions, the pay gap and the reconciliation of work and private life tend to be even more pronounced.
It is also a complex issue because it goes beyond equality policy to relate to the general situation in industry in Europe and the way Community policies can support industry and workers – both men and women – in the difficult context of globalisation. As you know, the adoption of the Roadmap for Gender Equality in 2006 underlined the Union’s full commitment to do its utmost to make progress towards a situation of real equality between men and women.
The six priorities of the roadmap are linked to improving the situation of women on the labour market. The first is economic independence for women and men, the second is reconciliation of private and professional life, the third is equal representation in decision-making and the fourth is the elimination of stereotypes. The Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament’s motion for a resolution highlights precisely these areas. Whilst the progress made in the area of gender equality is unquestionable, major challenges remain. The Commission shares the rapporteur’s view that we must continue our efforts and consolidate what has been achieved.
As far as women’s participation in industry is concerned, two issues should be tackled. Firstly, there are still very few women in industry compared to the services sector. Secondly, those women who work in industry tend to be in typically female sectors which are very labour-intensive and characterised by poor working conditions and low wages. The Commission is conducting various policies to meet these challenges. Combating stereotypes in education will, in the long term, lead to there being more highly skilled women in technical and scientific occupations and will also help to meet the needs of certain industrial sectors for manpower or womanpower. It is also important to support the careers of female engineers via networking, mentoring and measures to balance work and private life.
In order to diversify women’s employment in industry, it is vital to provide every opportunity for training and retraining. The European Social Fund provides essential support in this area. It is also vital to improve the current situation of women working in industry. For example, there is still an unjustifiably large gap between women and men. In industry, this gap is as much as 30%.
For this reason, in July 2007 the Commission adopted a communication on tackling the pay gap between women and men. The communication examined all the resources that must be mobilised to achieve this aim. The involvement of enterprises is an important way of making progress in the areas of equality between men and women at work, the gender pay gap, training, work-life balance and career development. In addition to the laws on equal treatment, which all enterprises must obey, it is important to encourage them to adopt voluntary measures to promote equality, in particular in the context of corporate social responsibility.
Finally, the Commission will shortly relaunch an awareness-raising campaign for enterprises about gender stereotypes. The report on women in industry underlines the vital role of work-life balance in order to achieve real gender equality and the Commission shares this analysis. This point was mentioned during the adoption by Parliament of the Kauppi report in September 2007.
The Commission will report in 2008 on progress towards the Barcelona objectives in the area of childcare. The second phase of the consultation of social partners on work-life balance concluded in July. The Commission takes the view that this issue should be tackled using a combination of different instruments, including the amendment of current Community legislation in order to better take account of new challenges."@en1
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