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10 August, 2006
1. Thailand - ICEM A/P Women’s Working Group
ICEM-JAF sponsored a women’s working group meeting on 27 and 28 July 2006 in Bangkok. The meeting focused on work-life balance, the pharmaceuticals industry, maternity protection, and preparations for ICEM’s Women’s World Conference, which will be held prior to ICEM’s Congress in Bangkok in November 2007.
Five women from different ICEM affiliates spearheaded the work-life balance issue. Work-life balance has turned into a vital issue in Japan because of a desire to combat the country’s long hours culture.
Long working hours are harmful to workers’ health, as we know from “karoshi,” or death from overwork. Depression and poor mental health, lifestyle disease, and unhealthy family relationships all result from the long hours culture.
In Japan, generally, both spouses work, but it is mainly women who bear responsibility for all aspects of child rearing. The 30’s are the age when childcare is the most important.
But men in their 30’s often work more than 60 hours a week. In Japan, one out of four men work more than 60 hours a week. Part-time workers obviously work less hours, but there are more and more people working part-time.
Women who look after children have a heavy burden. This is one of the reasons why Japan has a declining birth rate.
In Japan, people have started to realize that society must create an environment for women to continue to work during childrearing. Women must begin to demand that men, and their partners, participate in childcare. And the working hours issue must be reviewed both for women and men. Laws do exist, but the pressure is increasing, which means that women cannot even take advantage of the laws that are in place.
Some Japanese companies such as Takeda, Tanabe Pharmaceuticals, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company have set up labor-management committees to make proposals on work-life balance. Takeda and Meiji Seika are both recruiting more women than men. Younger men have different ideas from older men. But still, younger men need to build awareness to the work-life balance.
Tanabe has created a manual to create awareness and understanding and improve the situation.
In connection with the pharmaceuticals industry, in Japan, women earn 66% of what men earn. The proposal put forward by trade unionists attending the late July conference is to find out from ICEM affiliates what activities they are doing to achieve equal pay between women and men in the pharmaceuticals industry.
In addition, the group worked on a text that will be presented to Women’s World Conference on maternity protection, including protection against hazardous substances as well as material to campaign for the ratification of ILO Convention 183 on Maternity Protection.
2. Angola – African States Sign Agreement Against Trafficking
Twenty-six West and Central African countries, including Nigeria, Senegal, Gambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have signed a multicultural agreement against human trafficking, as reported by Angola Press on 11 July.
It is the first time that all countries from the region agreed to combat this problem. The ILO estimates from 200,000 to 800,000 African women and girls are trafficked every year to Europe and the Middle East and are forced into prostitution and forced labor. Human trafficking from Africa is exacerbated by poverty, traditional nomadic movement, and environmental destruction.
3. Australia – Retirement Not So Super for Boomer Women
Most baby boomers in Australia are unable to afford a comfortable retirement. Single women are the worst off, with most forced to rely on the state’s old-age pension.
Less than two percent are able to retire in comfort. Couples generally do better in retirement. Research found that one of the main reasons it was more difficult for single women to reach income levels for a comfortable retirement was that men accumulated, on average, double the amount of superannuation.
Based on their household disposable income in 2002 and 2003, only 1.8% of single retired women were able to afford a comfortable retirement, as compared to 10% for single men.
The research reports this is a result of women’s care responsibilities, gender-based wage rates before equal pay legislation, lower average wages, and the fact that before the introduction of compulsory superannuation, women were more likely to be in jobs where their employer did not make pension contributions.
The report found that in the age group of 25 to 44, the median superannuation balance for men was double that of women, but the median level of superannuation for women, ages 45 to 64, was about $A30,000 compared to $A80,000 for men.
4. Benin – West African Nation Bans Harassment
The Republic of Benin’s National Assembly voted 17 July to pass the country’s first comprehensive sexual harassment legislation aimed at protecting girls and women in schools, workplaces, and in homes.
In Benin, many girls opt out of school because they are sexually harassed by teachers. With no punishment for the men, some girls find it easier to drop out of school.
About 50% of young girls enroll in primary school, but a majority of them drop out by secondary school, according to UNICEF. Only 25% of Benin women, ages 15 and older, are literate. Allowing women to stay at work without being harassed will enhance the country’s chances for development.
5. Finland – Narrowing the Gender-based Pay Gap
Generally speaking, it can be accurately stated that no narrowing of the gap between women’s and men’s pay has taken place in a long time. The average wage and salary for women is still only about 80% of that for men, despite numerous efforts to tackle the gap.
“In Finland, the main factor, persistently maintaining the pay gap, is job segregation. Jobs occupied by women tend to belong to the low-pay category,” said Marja Erkkilä, responsible for gender equality at the largest union confederation SAK.
In Finland, the division between “women’s jobs” and “men’s jobs” is among the most entrenched in Europe. As long as this job segregation persists, the traditional “equal-pay-for-equal-work” principle cannot lead to any significant improvement.
Therefore, the trade union movement seeks to realign the equality issue, but this time more rigorously. The idea now is to make a strict comparison of the value of work between various jobs, and accordingly, raise the wages and salaries of those jobs. In Finland to date, such comparisons only have been made within individual companies.
However, concrete cases do exist in which strict comparisons have won significant pay rises for individual women who hold down demanding service sector jobs. It explains why the employers’ interest in this kind of approach is less than enthusiastic for the traditional studies on how well, in practice, the “equal pay for equal work” principle has been carried out.
According to Erkkilä, the employers’ mainstream consensus is that more developed job evaluations are not needed as job segregation will decrease through natural changes in career planning patterns. Erkkilä finds these claims unfounded. “Primarily the culture seems to reproduce the prevailing pattern,” she said. However, among the major employers there are some notable exceptions.
By way of example, Erkkilä mentions the Swedish-Finnish forest industry group Stora Enso. “Recently, (the company's) key peope have recognized that among it's experts, there are too few women.” A larger provision of women will raise the orgnaisation’s ability to respond to the company’s challenges, Stora Enso believes.
6. Germany – Social Partnership for Equal Opportunities and Family-Family Policies
IGBCE has signed an agreement with the employers’ federation on equal opportunities and family-friendly employment policies. In this agreement, the social partners commit themselves to equal opportunities and family-friendly policies in the chemical industry. The government calls the agreement “exemplary.” The point is to make family and working-life more compatible.
The pharmaceuticals company Abbott is trying to foster work-life balance among both women and men employees, for example, offering flex-time work arrangements for both mothers and fathers. Flexible arrangements are also possible in shift work.
In addition, Abbott has signed a contract with the city of Wiesbaden to make childcare available for working parents at Abbott. This has made it possible for mothers to get back to work more quickly and to continue with their career. Abbott, too, has made the most of its employees whose know-how can still be used after having children.
7. Iraq – Unemployment Forces Female Professionals into Domestic Work
Najla Muhammad, 34, is a biologist who graduated from one of the best universities in Baghdad. Unfortunately, rising unemployment has forced her to seek work as a housekeeper in order to support her family. She now earns between US$100 and US$120 a month. Her husband, meanwhile, holds a degree in economics, but has been unemployed for nearly a year and has few prospects for work.
National unemployment figures have risen ever since the occupation of Iraq by US-led forces in 2003. Local NGOs say this has led to increasing numbers of female professionals being driven to search for work as domestic servants. Up to half of the national population is currently unemployed in Iraq, where women represent almost 60% of the total populace.
While government officials say the problem affects everyone, some activists insist that gender discrimination has made the situation especially difficult for women. Many women also complain that domestic work can often be degrading, especially for someone with a degree. In some cases, female professionals have reacted aggressively when asked by employers to do something seen as being beneath them.
According to the Iraqi Centre for Women’s Rehabilitation and Employment, discrimination and harassment are commonplace for many women holding jobs as domestic servants. To make matters worse, the experience of doing domestic work is horribly painful on educated women who are adept in their fields.
8. Korea – Hiring of Women at Large Enterprises Lags Behind
Despite women’s growing participation in economic activities, employment of women at large enterprises and government agencies remains at 30.7%, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Labor.
This was shown on a survey of 543 workplaces which must take measures under the active employment improvement scheme, introduced in March 2005. In management positions, that figure is just 10.2%.
Health and welfare-related industries had the most female workers with 64.2%, while the mining industry showed the least participation, 6.3%. The manufacturing sector had 40.4%, and the chemical industry, 9.9%.
By enterprise type, large private enterprises with 1,000 or more employees showed higher participation in terms of the hiring rate of female workers and female managers, than state-run agencies.
To solve the problem, the Ministry of Labor is planning to hold meetings with leaders of state-run companies that have low female employment. In addition, workshops and consultations will be arranged to enterprises with low levels of women workers, and starting next year financial incentives will be paid for improving a women-friendly environment.
Furthermore, to raise the social awareness of women’s employment, a list of companies by industry with low hiring rates will be made public.
According to the Ministry of Labor, there is still a hard glass-ceiling pressed against women in order to advance into high-ranking positions, despite the increasing number of women’s activities.
9. Nepal – Female Labourers Demand Equal Pay
Female labourers in Nepal are angry that they continue to be discriminated against in terms of pay. Women are often paid only half what men earn in construction, quarries, brick kilns, farms, and other informal employment where employers discriminate.
Women have filed a case at the Supreme Court in Kathmandu to end discrimination. The Women’s Labour Advocacy Group claims that the minimum wage for men has been set at US$2-a-day, while women’s earn US$ 1.50. The group plans to stage protests at the Nepalese Parliament if their legal action is not successful.
10. Sweden – New Job Evaluation System Reduces Wage Gap
A new system is being used in Sweden that helps level out differences in wages between men and women. The system, called BAS, is used by the city council of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city.
The introduction of BAS has led to female-dominated jobs being upgraded in terms of pay. The results are shown in the statistics: between 2000 and 2005, typical “female” professions saw their salaries increased by 30%. Wages for typically male dominated jobs received smaller increases. In 2000, women employed by the council earned, on average, 15% less than men. By 2005, the gap had been reduced to 10%.
The Swedish Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson says the council has chosen a very useful method. He also remarked that many employers do not know what criteria to use to determine salaries. The BAS system is an extremely helpful tool to understand and change the current wage structures.
On 7 June, the Swedish government presented an action programme to address the gender wage gap. The action programme states that all parties in the employment market have an important role in achieving equal pay. The programme includes various measures such as education, law reforms and establishes a monitoring mechanism through an official report on wages differences. (Source: PSI)
11. United States – Women Show Discontent in Union Survey
Every two years since 1997, the AFL-CIO has surveyed thousands of working women to gauge attitudes on issues such as wages, benefits and opportunities.
“There’s a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the lack of equality,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Ms. Nussbaum said the level of concern over equal pay came as a surprise even to her. A keyword search on comments yielded several references to “second class citizens” and “working twice as hard.”
The most pressing concern of women responding to the survey was the rising cost of health care.
According to a report by the US Department of Education, women now earn the majority of degrees in many fields that men used to dominate. Although women have traditionally led the fields of education and psychology, their dominance in fields such as business, history, and biological and social sciences is somewhat of a surprise.
These changes may be attributed to the fact that men have had more trouble adapting to a service economy.
Nevertheless, women are still underpaid in comparison to men, although they are making strides in the job market. In fields with an above-average percentage of women, annual earnings totaled US$27,278, compared to US$37,962 in fields with an above-average percentage of men.
From Our Readers:
Linda Briskin from York University in Toronto, Canada, writes:
I recently completed a research project on equity bargaining and bargaining equity.
Equity Bargaining/Bargaining Equity
Linda Briskin (mailto:[email protected])
Toronto: Centre for Research on Work and Society (CRWS), York University, Updated and revised, July 2006 (112 pages).
ABSTRACT: Drawing on material from the United Kingdom and other countries of the European Union, the United States, Australia and Canada, this introduction considers the following themes relevant to equity bargaining/bargaining equity: labour market shifts, state restructuring and bargaining equity; bargaining equity in the context of equal opportunity and human rights legislation; the equity agenda in collective bargaining which includes an exploration of workplace versus family-friendly flexibility; strategies for challenging the generic worker in collective agreements; the challenge of desegregating the demographics and process of negotiations; and finally, the importance of building union support for equity bargaining and bargaining equity, both inside unions and through coalitions and alliances.
The Resources section of this document includes an annotated list of union documents relevant to equity bargaining, Canadian government sources on equity bargaining, searchable databases, an annotated bibliography of secondary sources, information on the extensive research project on Equal Opportunity and Collective Bargaining in the European Union, annotations of relevant material from the International Labour Office (ILO), and an index by subject.
It is hoped that this document will offer a multitude of ideas about how to bargain on any particular equity issue, facilitate the cross-fertilization of equity bargaining strategies across unions, and provide support to equity researchers in unions and universities. This document also demonstrates a convergence of equity bargaining concerns across vastly differing union movements, and cultural and national contexts. Indeed, much can be learned from the union organizing, government initiatives and research in other countries, in particular, in the European Union.
Available from:
Centre for Research on Work and Society
Suite 276, York Lanes Building, York University
4700 Keele Street,
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
(416) 736-5612; (416) 736-5916 (fax)
[email protected]
C$10.
Linda Briskin
Professor, Social Science/School of Women's Studies
York University
www.arts.yorku.ca/sosc/lbriskin
Carol Fraser of Canada’s Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) writes:
All sisters should take time to look at this website or look on the internet for “Innflammatory Breast Cancer.” There is a very informative video found on this site, too.
http://dawn.thot.net/ibc.html
Laila Shriem, Palestine, writes:
I have been very busy in the union and the municipality. I worked on the many things I learned in Jordan. I made many workshops in Jenin about women workers’ rights and gender. Altogether 25 workers showed up for the workshops. I hope that we can do something together like workshops here in Jenin. I hope that we can be in touch.