ETF Women S Conference
ETF Women’s Conference
Mariehamn, 24 May 2005
ETF WOMEN’S COMMITTEE
ACTIVITY REPORT
May 2001 – March 2005
1. General developments
The ETF Women’s Committee was set up in May 2001 in Zagreb, at the decision of the 1st ETF Ordinary Congress. The Committee is an ETF policy making body. It is geographically balanced and it consists of 12 members elected by the Congress and representatives of the eight ETF sections. The ETF Women’s Committee meets twice every year.
2. Gender balanced representation in the ETF bodies
The 1st ETF Ordinary Congress (Zagreb 2001) decided on a number of amendments to the ETF Constitution which ensure that the leading bodies of the ETF – the Management and Executive committees – are gender balanced, principle that has been ever since applied in the case of all ETF delegations.
Out of 11 European Industrial Federations only 3 have achieved gender balanced representation in the decision making bodies. The ETF is one of the three, with 6 women’s representatives in the ETF Executive Committee and 1 women’s representative in the ETF Management Committee[1].
3. Committee’s work programme and strategy
The Committee’s work programme is based on the Conclusions adopted by the ETF Women’s Conference at their founding meeting in Zagreb. It is on this basis that the Committee set up its mid-term strategy in 2003. The strategy sets up the following priorities:
- mainstreaming of the gender dimension into the ETF policies;
- Improving participation and representation of women transport workers in ETF work and amongst the ETF affiliates
- identifying areas of research on gender in transport in Europe;
- promoting cooperation amongst women transport workers across Europe;
- empowering women transport workers by facilitating access to information and decision making;
- strengthening cooperation with other organisations in the field of gender equality
The strategy was presented at and warmly welcomed by the ETF Executive Committee at its meeting in October 2003.
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4. ACTIVITIES – progress towards strategic aims
4.1. AIM: Mainstreaming the gender dimension into the ETF policies
A gender project of European social partners in railway sector: In 2004 the ETF and the CER[2] started a project on a “better integration of women in railway professions”. The project aims to analyse the employment structure and status of women in the railway enterprises and tro propose measures for improvement. A report will be published in May 2005. The project activities consisted in a series of country visits carried out by a joint ETF – CER project group, meetings with social partners from SNCF / Paris 14 October 2004); MAV / Budapest (12 November 2004); PKP / Warsaw (26 January 2005). The ETF – CER project creates premises for similar initiatives in other ETF sections.
Apart from the above mentioned initiative, the presence of section representatives in the ETF Women’s Committee ensured that specific sectoral aspects were fed into the Committee debates via regular section and country reports whose focal point was the impact of certain developments and policies on women in transport.
Challenges to address:
The Committee considers that more progress must be achieved in raising awareness on the situation of women transport workers at section level. Gender equality issues should be included on section agendas and on the agenda of the sectoral dialogue committees. It is still very difficult to receive feed-back from ETF affiliates and even from the ETF Women’s network members with regards to specific problems encountered by female workforce in transport.
4.2. AIM: Improving participation and representation of women transport workers at the level of the ETF and amongst the ETF affiliates
In October 2003 the ETF Women’s Committee submitted and the ETF Executive Committee approved a resolution aiming to improve participation of women trade unionists in the ETF activities. The resolution asked for:
- a gender balanced participation in all those activities were participation costs were covered via the ETF
- an increased participation of female transport unionists from those countries where ETF activities are organised
The ETF Secretariat was asked to include a specific reference to gender balanced participation in all invitation letters to activities funded via the ETF.
Challenges to be addressed:
Although gender balanced representation has been achieved at the ETF level, this is not the case with the ETF affiliates: a considerable number of them do not have gender structures at union level and have a rather poor level of women in negotiation and leading bodies. The Committee will make sure that its next work programme will include recommendations to the ETF affiliates aimed to redress the balance of gender representation at this level.
4.3. AIM: Defining areas of research on gender in transport
In the last year, the Committee and the ETF Secretariat have been working on collecting existing research studies, facts and figures on women in transport, particularly in the context of drafting its future Women’s Conference document. The Committee noticed the chronic lack of data concerning the situation of female workforce in the industry. Apart from a couple of recent international / European studies and some disparate research on various gender topics at national level there is but little information on women in transport. The Committee has identified some critical areas where urgent data is needed – such is for example women’s participation in emerging transport companies (logistics) – and will make clear recommendations in its future four-year work programme with regards to specific topics for research.
4.4. AIM: Promoting cooperation amongst women transport workers from ETF affiliates
The ETF Women’s network: In 2002 the ETF started an ETF women’s network to include women transport workers with an interest in gender equality from amongst the ETF affiliated members. At present the network has 51 members (all transport sectors) from 45 ETF affiliates (which is approximately 20% of the total number of affiliates) and 25 European countries. Network members are the primary target group for the ETF gender activities. The functioning of the network has been to a certain degree impeded by delays in setting up the ETF web-page. However, the network members have managed to start up and maintain good cooperation. The ETF aims to organise network meetings yearly in order to: consolidate formal and informal networking; ensure input into the ETF Women’s Committee work; discuss specific problems faced by women workers in transport in Europe; help coordinate projects, activities, campaigns.
The ETF network meetings – Budapest 2003 and Brussels 2004: Two network meetings took place during the reporting period: Budapest – July 2003 and Brussels – December 2004. The three-day Budapest meeting brought together 22 network members from Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Sweden. The main outcome of the meeting was the agreement over a set of future network priorities, amongst which: improving network formal / informal communication; exchange experience and organise bilateral visits to assist ETF affiliates create women’s structures; promote training of women in collective bargaining negotiation skills. It was at this stage that the ETF Women’s Committee was asked to organise annual ETF network meetings, request which was taken on board by the Committee. The two-day Brussels meeting was attended by 16 sisters from Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. The present discussed the gender dimension of the European Union strategy for economic and employment growth (Lisbon Strategy). Guest speakers presented: a European Union survey on “Europeans’ attitudes to parental leave” and a research study on “Gender issues in safety and health at work” carried out by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Workplace. The two presentations stimulated debate on the main document of the 2005 ETF Women’s Conference, specifically on gender segregation and equal pay in transport, work-life balance and its Impact on recruitment and retention of women in transport occupations, the gender dimension of health and safety at workplace.
Challenges to address:
The Committee reckons that more progress should be achieved with respect to:
- participation of ETF affiliates in the ETF women’s network remains low, of approximately 20 %. A new call for nominations will be launched at the ETF Women’s Conference – May 2005.
- The input of network members at the ETF level must be further encouraged. In this respect, the Committee has decided to open every first day of the bi-annual Committee meeting to all ETF affiliates willing to participate in the Committee’s work.
- The ETF web-site should be functional
4.5. AIM: Empowering women transport workers by building capacity, facilitating access to information and to decision making levels within their trade unions
The ETF Study visit for women transport workers – Brussels, December 2003: Nine women transport workers from Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden participated in the event (including members of the ETF Women’s Committee). The aim of the study visit was to facilitate better understanding of the ETF, its role and activities at European level, to create a better knowledge on the functioning of the EU institutions and on the policy makers in the area of gender equality. The programme of the study visit included meetings with members of the ETF secretariat – a discussion on ETF actions vis-à-vis the ports package; a meeting with the CER and the ETF, European social partners in the railway sector; a visit to the European Parliament and a meeting with the chairperson of the EP Women’s Rights Committee; meetings with representatives of the European Commission – DG Employment and Social Affairs and with the European Trade Union Confederation. In addition, the participants had the opportunity to discuss aspects of women’s employment in the industry. In particular, they stress on:
- the difficulties to cope with male-dominating workplace culture and working conditions
- discriminatory employment practices and limited access to employment
- aspects of quality of life and quality of employment for women
- exploitation of female cabin crew image as sex symbols in the airline industry
The ETF intends to organise study visits for women transport workers annually.
ETF 8th of March country visits: during the reporting period ETF Women’s Committee members organised four country visits with the primary aim to give visibility to women’s issues and women’s structures within their own trade unions. Three visits were organised in 2004 – Lithuania hosted by the Transport Workers’ Federation, Croatia – visit hosted by the Railway Workers’ Union of Croatia, and Romania – at the invitation of the Workers’ Federation from Metro and Aviation. The meeting in Croatia was also attended by a group of women railway workers from VDSzSz (the Free Trade Union of Railway Workers from Budapest, Hungary). Members of the ETF Women’s Committee visited workplaces and met with women transport workers from Vilnius bus garages; the Bucharest Metro depot and ticketing unit; Zagreb’s main railway station. In addition, all visits included meetings with trade union leaders and company representatives. Discussions were focused on: jobs and working conditions for women in male-dominated workplaces; the impact of restructuring on women with occupations that are regarded as man-only; the need for women to be represented in leading trade union structures. In Lithuania, talking about the impact of enlargement on female workforce, female rank and file members referred to the gaps in earnings between Lithuania and the ‘old’ Member States and about migration of young women to Western Europe. In 2005 the ETF organised a country visit to Turkey. Two members of the ETF Women’s Committee had the opportunity to meet female workers and trade union leadership of Hava Is. Discussions focused on women’s rights in Turkey. Following the 8th of March country visits two trade unions set up women’s structures and one other union promoted a female colleague in the trade union executive board as women’s representative.
The ETF – European Commission seminar on Community acquis – December 2004:
A seminar on European Community legislation in the area of gender equality was organised by the ETF in cooperation with the European Commission – DG Enlargement. Approximately 40 participants from the new Member States and the three Candidate Countries attended the event. The target group included representatives from ETF, ETUC, UNI-Europa, the European Women Lobby and national governments. The two-day event was aimed to inform the participants with regards to the gender equality Community Acquis and, on the other hand, to measure its level of implementation in the countries concerned. The agenda included presentation of the EU main actors involved in the gender equality policy making process, including the role and activities of the European social partners in promoting gender equality legislation; presentations of EU directives on gender equality at workplace and outside work; the role of the European Court of Justice; country reports with regards to the progress towards implementation of gender equality Community Acquis. The country reports showed that although in all countries concerned except for Turkey national legislation has been aligned to the EU requirements, actual implementation remains problematic and discrimination persists. Participants from some countries asked to have similar seminars organised nationally.
Challenges: the biggest challenge stays with the ETF affiliates and the ETF women’s network members is as much as they have to ensure that knowledge and capacity building will be passed on to all levels of trade union organisations, to the rank and file members. Also, more participation of sisters from Western and Northern Europe is a must in the process of spreading good practice and experience. Or so far the participants in the ETF programmes were predominantly from Central and Eastern European countries.
4.6. AIM: strengthening cooperation with other organisations in the field of gender equality
During the period December 2003 – January 2005 the ETF participated in the ETUC – UNICE / UEAPME / CEEP negotiations on frame of actions on gender equality meant to meant to help with implementation of gender equality measures at company level. The process involved a series of approximately 10 meetings – plenary sessions and working groups – where four main topics were discussed by the European social partners: segregation of labour markets; reconciliation of work and family life; equal pay; women in leadership positions. The ETF participation helped establish closer working contacts with other European Industrial Federations and with the ETUC.