I - Women and fight of EL against insecure employment
On 29th October 2005, in the women assembly of the EL 1st congress, we said:
" If the domination capital / labour remains the dominant structure of societies in Europe and in the world, the other forms of domination, notably male, prevents any social transformation, because they contribute to oppose individuals between them, to fix the prejudices and to split up the resistances. The patriarchy crosses the class structures. Capitalism is not only the exploitation of labour, but also the amplified resumption of all forms of alienations. "
And two days later, in the Athens declaration we committed ourselves to fight for the eradication of the tragedy of unemployment and insecure employment in Europe. The EL women took their complete part in this fight.
The 1st European meeting against insecure employment took place on 26th April 2006 in Paris. This meeting was co-organized by GUE and the EL. There were 22 participants of 12 different countries, in charge of the economic and employment questions in their parties. Almost half of the participants were women.
Present Europe is a liberal Europe, which in the course of the successive treaties favoured the henceforth-crushing domination of financial markets. In this context, the Lisbon strategy adopted in 2000 makes of the reform of the labour market one of its guidelines.
The analyses of the labour market reforms made by the various representatives of the present parties in the Paris meeting, showed very strong resemblances: the progressive replacement of permanent (or open-ended) contracts by fix-term or precarious contracts or also in forced part-time job contracts. Other representatives stated the fact that flexibility in employment does not create full-time employment. The countries, which adopted it have a worrying unemployment rate. We all noticed the fall of the wage bill and the increase of the discriminations in hiring new staff.
The first ones to be affected by these social regressions are everywhere women, young people and immigrants.
The EL women who met in Paris on 8th July 2006 wanted the feminist dimension to be taken into account in the fight against the insecure employment. This is what we are doing today.
In the Athens European social Forum in 2006 , the victory in France against the "First Employment Contracts" and the battle against precariousness were discussed in almost all the seminars and a action day against precarious employment was planned at the time of the G8 meeting in Germany in June 2007.
The EL has worked for 2 years with the European social Forum for the elaboration of a "Charter of principles for another Europe".
In chapter 3, it is written down " Equality and difference ":
- Europe guarantees the right for an equal status between man and woman in all the domains of the political and social life.
And farther
- The public institutions encourage any initiative aiming at terminating any form of patriarchy, whatever social or political by an active support in the women initiatives, as well individually as collectively.
To answer this requirement of equality, we could propose examples of concrete measures such as:
The European Union in link with the International Labour Office and the Ministers of the various countries in charge of employment, could organize every year a conference on the respect of professional male /female (hiring, salaries, promotions) The infringements on professional equality could then be considered as a discrimination liable to be legally punishable, notably if the report shows that the differences in salaries and in vocational training persist, and if the women have force part-time work and not real flexi-time work.
To raise the obstacles to the progress of the women professional careers, a campaign in each of the respective countries could be undertaken to demand sufficient public services to care for children.
It is necessary to make live everywhere this watchword " In equal work, equal salary " and to demand a general increase of salaries.
II - Women and the fight against the Bolkestein decree
The European construction has for founding principle the free competition for a single market. The consequence of this principle: it that men and women are not free but in service of competition, and once again women are the most affected.
The Bolkestein directive brings the workers of the various countries in competitions. Three dimensions are to be taken into account in this fight which is not finished:
1-Every European Union country have in the coming three years to remove in their national legislation all which prevent the free traffic of services. We can thus, each in our countries, continue the fight against this fratricide directive.
2 - We are conscious in the Western countries that it will be the weakest who are going to be "precarized" first, for example the Eastern countries. That is why the EL has to work on solidarities between eastern and western employees.
We also demand an increase of the European budget for structural capitals, which would allow the new EC entered countries to increase their living standards, as they did for Spain, Portugal and Greece.
3 - The decline of public services by the community will be a social load largely transferred on women: care to the person, in particular for the old persons, the education, care of small children etc. …
But also, more a country is unequal, more the wealthy and a part of the middle class are incited to be served by an army of employees of the lower classes that are mainly women and often immigrant women.
Conclusion
So the hard core of the patriarchy will reconstruct because history taught us that to make them respect our rights, it is necessary to have the means of it.
To the force of capitalism, it is necessary to oppose the law, the only force that the peoples possess.
Laws to loosen the vice of the finance on the world of the work, laws to give new rights to the citizens and additional laws for those who are the most discriminated: the women.
The increase of the leftwing women in the political and legislative authorities is thus urgent in Europe.
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