Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-17-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20080117.3.4-016"2
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".
Mr Chairman, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my committee colleague Ilda Figueiredo has, as always, done an excellent job. She has documented facts that I myself consider fundamental, in particular the fact that working women account for the dominant share of employment in the processing industry, where the majority of jobs require fewer qualifications, are manual and are badly paid. The stereotype that it is a woman’s lot to do auxiliary work is well illustrated here. I had the opportunity to visit several production plants in the food industry in different countries. These plants are very similar, despite their geographical diversity. The men hold the managerial jobs and the unskilled work on the production line is done by women. They earn little, they work mechanically in a stupefying rhythm, without any motivation for professional growth, and they work under unfavourable conditions. This is, of course, wrong.
A great deal of work is still needed to put an end to gender inequality. We must realise that this area is still not sufficiently covered by statistics and that the gender issue is a relatively new statistical phenomenon. In the real world, the disadvantages experienced by women in industry, compared with men, are even more noticeable. However, it is necessary to focus on the issues that the rapporteur rightly designated as priorities: the disadvantages facing women in terms of pay and the fact that there are few women in technical fields that are, in comparison to the significant processing industry, technologically more demanding and better paid. Women need to be able to gain access to higher education; professional qualifications are of relevance here. They should also be given the opportunity to return from maternity leave to the labour market, but also to further studies. This right, of course, applies to men who look after children too.
Some regions of the European Union, particularly in the East, are undergoing changes in the structure of their industries. These changes are enforcing greater workforce mobility and retraining. I know about these trends from my own experience, because I come from the industrial part of the Czech Republic, which has been industrialised, and I am aware of their impact, especially on working women.
Another related problem is the transfer of factories to countries outside the European Union, where the workforce is cheaper. Women’s employment is also threatened by the influx of cheap goods from Asia, but also from other countries that produce high volumes of consumer goods for foreign markets, rather than supplying their own market, which does not have the purchasing power. All these factors have a noticeable influence on the employment of women in industry and their negative consequences should be gradually mitigated."@en1
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