Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-24-Speech-4-046-000"
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"en.20120524.5.4-046-000"2
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"Madam President, I want to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on her report.
In 1966, a strike broke out in Herstal, the town of which I am mayor. This strike went on to make history: 3 000 women working at the National Arms factory went out on strike for 11 weeks. These workers were simply calling for the application of the Treaty of Rome, which provided for equal pay for men and women for the same work. That is the famous principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’. That was the first time that this slogan had been used by civil society.
Forty-six years later, equal pay remains a topical issue. At the present time, in the European Union, women continue to earn 16 to 17% less than men, a figure re-confirmed by the Organisation of Economic and Social Development (OECD) quite recently. This state of affairs is all the more unacceptable insofar as there is a legal framework which expressly includes the principle of pay equality, due to the greater risk of poverty as a direct effect of pay inequality.
We must strengthen wage transparency, broaden women’s career prospects, enable them to play a more active part in decision making at all levels in the economic sector, and also encourage those businesses which take steps to encourage pay equality. These are just some of the measures which could allow us to tackle the pay gap, which also affects pensions. These are some of the matters that I raised through amendments and that I have been pleased to find in the report.
I hope that with this report and the initiatives that the Commission is due to take by strengthening the legislative framework, particularly in relation to the importance of collective bargaining and the sanctions system, people will no longer need to resort to social confrontation, as happened in Herstal in 1966, to advance this cause in Europe."@en1
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