What has the EU done for women?

Debate concluded that the EU has improved women’s rights in the UK over the last 40 years.  But the future may not be so bright, reports Rachel Salmon, who was in the audience.

The European Parliament Information Office in the UK and the National Alliance of Women's Organisations hosted a debate on 7 March called 'What has the EU done for Gender Equality' to coincide with International Women's Day.

It was also one of the events organised to mark the 40th anniversary of Britain joining the EU.

One of the speakers, Dr Roberta Guerrina, Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Politics at the University of Surrey believed the EU had been very instrumental in establishing employment rights for women.

“The introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970 was influenced by the prospect of accession, in that the UK would have had to implement it.

“The 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive and the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, which also included fathers, allows six months, albeit unpaid, and three months for the woman, which was non-transferrable.

"The UK has gone beyond these basic measures, but positive employment rights have consolidated women’s positions as workers.”

Justine Roberts, founder and CEO of Mumsnet, said she believed the EU needed to do more to publicise the good work it has done for women.

“Most are aware of maternity and part-time workers rights, but we can’t get away from the fact that even graduates have less pay.  There is still a lot to be done.

“It is important, given that we may have a referendum coming up.

"Women are delighted that they have time off to go to ante-natal clinic, but they don’t join the dots,” she said.

Marina Yannakoudakis, Conservative MEP for London, who was instrumental in blocking EU plans to give women 20 weeks maternity leave, said the EU did most for women’s rights when it worked together to prevent Female Genital Mutilation, sex trafficking and enforced marriage.

“I wouldn’t like the EU to push more legislation, particularly on small and medium sized businesses,” she said.

Labour MEP Mary Honeyball said she believed that some of the EU’s recent work to promote equal access to goods and services was breaking new ground for women.

She said that new EU regulations were forcing the insurance industry to take a close look at the way it worked so that women received the same pensions as men.

“If you get EU legislation it filters down and makes people look at what they are doing,” she pointed out.

Jacqueline Minor, head of the European Commission Representation in London, said that half of the staff employed by EU institutions were now women, but women make up only 28 per cent of the top three grades. When she joined it was just 10 per cent.

“We tend to find women in HR or coordinating jobs rather than hard policy jobs,” she said.

The EU was addressing this by encouraging more women to apply and taking measures to stop ‘cloning’, the tendency for managers to replace an employee with someone with similar skills and characteristics, which would work against women in a male-dominated workplace.

But there was concern that, in future, the EU may not be such a force for good for women.

“The accession of Central and Eastern European states has led to retrenchment.  There are a large number of socially conservative states sending Justices to the European Court of Justice.

“It has become much less an advocate for women’s rights, it is sitting on the fence, it is more conservative, especially when it comes to issues relating to care,” said Guerrina.

“In the southern states of the EU, women are actively discriminated against for having children.  Italy now has the lowest birth rate in the world.  Women have gone on strike because of the impact of non-equality,” she added.

“A lot of the impetus for change in the past came from the UK.

"The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Trades Unions were very clever at picking cases that would advance rights.

"This has slowed down of late,” she said.

There was also concern about David Cameron’s intention to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership if he wins the next UK election and plans to transfer powers, currently governed by the EU, back to the British parliament.

The TUC's General Secretary Frances O’Grady, was unable to attend. But in a written statement to the meeting, she said she did not believe repatriating powers from the EU would lead to improved social protection.

“As inequality grows and living standards fall I hope we will win the case for keeping Europe social for men and especially for women,” she wrote.

Honeyball believed Cameron’s talk of repatriation was wishful thinking.

“The UK won’t be in a position to put together a qualified majority which this will need.  I am not convinced by the negotiating skills of George Osborne or David Cameron,” she said.

Yannakoudakis said that Angela Merkel had welcomed Cameron’s latest speech about reshaping the EU.

“If we repatriate these powers, it doesn’t mean that all maternity rights will go away tomorrow,” she said.

But Roberts sounded a note of caution.

“Fifty one per cent of the voting population are female.

"It is unlikely that David Cameron would start messing with the gender equality rules. The women’s vote is important.

And she continued, "The Leader of the Conservative Party is not ranking as well as he once was."

“We know UKIP is doing well with some ex Tory voters,” she said.

And she said that when Mumsnet hosted a discussion with UKIP leader Nigel Farage he repeated Alan Sugar’s mantra that ‘no employer in his right mind would employ a women of child-bearing age’.

Story published in Women's Views on News, Friday, 15 March, 2013.

Film festival to celebrate Arab women

The Birds Eye View film festival promises spectacular line up of creative voices from the Arab world.

The 2013 Bird's Eye View film festival, an annual event celebrating women filmmakers, opens in London next month, and this year features the work of women from across the Arab world.

There will be an International Women’s Day gala screening of 'Wadija', Saudi Arabia’s first feature film, from breakthrough female director Haifaa Al Mansour, which tells the story of a rebellious schoolgirl who wants a bicycle, and when her parents refuse, determines to raise the money herself.

Wadjda won multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival for its inspiring, sharply humorous and gently subversive look at a life in modern-day Riyadh.

On 3 April the main film festival, Celebrating Arab Women Filmmakers, will have an Opening Night Gala featuring 'When I Saw You' from Palestine's first female feature director, Annemarie Jacir,  following a free-spirited young boy escaping from a refugee camp in Jordan in 1967.

Other features include 'Coming Forth by Day', which follows an unmarried woman dutifully caring for her sick father as she tries to escape to a life of her own, and 'On the Edge', which depicts two young women as they plunge into the underside of Moroccan life.

The festival will also feature documentaries such as 'In the Shadow of a Man' exploring recent events in Egypt from a woman’s perspective and 'A Tale of Two Syrias', which looks at the country’s mounting unrest from two very different perspectives.

There will also be a series of short films and special events like Sound and Silents, where modern composers perform their own scores to silent movies, and Fashion Loves Film, this year exploring Middle Eastern fashion past and present.

Birds Eye View founder-director Rachel Millward said: ‘I’m thrilled that in 2013 Birds Eye View will celebrate the work of Arab women filmmakers.

"Now, when Arab women are dominating the headlines at the world's most established film festivals, is the perfect time to shine a light on this increasingly important and diverse range of cinematic voices.’

Bird’s Eye View 2013 takes place on International Women's Week, 7 and 8 March 2013, at the Southbank Centre and BFI Southbank.

The main film festival, Celebrating Arab Women Filmmakers, runs from 3-10 April 2013 at the BFI Southbank, the Barbican, the ICA and at Hackney Picturehouse.

Tickets are on sale now.

Story published in Women's Views on News, February 25, 2013.

The TUC looks at age and pay

Age Immaterial' aims to shed light on five issues faced by older women at work.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has launched a new initiative, called Age Immaterial, to discuss and highlight the concerns of women aged 50 and over at work.

It has identified five key concerns; pay, caring responsibilities, age and sex discrimination and health, and will release detailed reports on each.

The first of these reports, focusing on the pay gap between older women and other workers, was released last week.

It found that women in their 50s earn nearly a fifth less than men of the same age - the widest gender pay gap of any age group.

The analysis shows that despite a dramatic rise in the number of women working past 50, low pay and pensioner poverty remain major concerns for them as they approach retirement.

A woman in her 50s working full-time currently earns £11.99 per hour - 18 per cent less per hour than a man of a similar age  at £14.69.

This compares to a 10 per cent gender pay gap across the workforce as a whole.

Women in their 50s also earn less per hour than women in their 30s - £14.17 - and 40s - £12.93).

But the TUC analysis shows that full-time earnings only tell half the story, as half of all women over 50 are employed in part-time work.

The average hourly part-time wage for a woman in her 50s is just £8.53 - a third less than the average full-time wage across the UK workforce  of £12.76.

The majority of women over 50 in part-time work earn less than £10,000 a year.

The TUC analysis also shows that older women have seen the fastest jobs growth in the last two decades.

In 1992, the majority of women over 50 were not active in the labour market.

Today, just 37 per cent of females over 50 are economically inactive, while three in five are in work.

But while rising employment rates for older women is good news, the TUC is concerned that a lack of good quality, part-time work means that many working women are still struggling to save enough for their retirement, despite working for longer than ever.

TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said: “The rising number of women over 50 in work has been the great success story of the last two decades.

“But while more women are working for longer, low pay remains a big problem, particularly for the millions who have been badly let down by the pension system and who are approaching retirement with little or no savings.

“Part-time work is the only option available for many older women who also have to look after loved ones, either their grandchildren or their own parents, or who may no longer be able to work long hours.

"Most of these women earn less than £10,000 a year, barely enough to live on, let alone save for their retirement.

“As the workforce ages, it's essential that people are able to work part-time hours without having to give up decent pay.”

Follow Age Immaterial on Twitter @ageimmaterial, or sign up to their blog.

Story published in Women's Views on News, February 27, 2013.

Parental leave reforms don't go far enough

Paid leave for prenatal appointments, provisions for breastfeeding and equal pay for parental leave missing from new regulations say campaigners

Last week the government announced changes to parental leave rules which will give women a right to up to a year’s maternity leave, but enable her to return to work after two weeks if she wishes and share the remaining leave and maternity payments with her partner, as long as they qualify.

Fathers will be entitled to unpaid leave from work to attend up to two ante-natal appointments, and adopters will be entitled to the same pay and leave as birth parents.

All employees will now be able to request flexible working.

Ros Bragg, from Valuing Maternity, a campaign for better employment protection for pregnant women and new mothers said: “We are really pleased that women’s rights are protected for up to 52 weeks of maternity leave and that women have the option to share leave with fathers and partners.

But she added that the campaign had concerns about other aspects of the reforms.

In a guest blog, Emma Pickett, lactation consultant and co-chair of Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, called for clear rights to breastfeed on return to work.

In the UK, a breastfeeding mother had the legal right to ‘rest’ but not to express and store her milk.

Health and safety guidance might suggest that an employer could provide a room and a time for a mother to pump but they are only required to allow her to rest.

“We don’t want to rest. Give us 10 minutes to use our double electric breast pump perhaps 3 times in a working day and most of us will be able to continue to give our baby’s breast milk for as long as we want to,” she said.

“It will make continuing to breastfeed while working normal and manageable. We need never assume that a woman returning early to work would of course be ending breastfeeding.”

Valuing Maternity produced a checklist of measures which would promote real equality in shared parental leave.

These include paid time off for fathers and partners to attend anti-natal appointments, four weeks paid leave for all fathers and partners and statutory pay for paternity leave and additional paternity leave to match maternity pay.

Protect our family planning services

Cuts to sexual health services could lead to a rise in abortions and STIs, charities claim.

A new report commissioned by two of the UK’s leading family planning charities claims cuts to contraception and sexual health services could lead to an increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Increases which could saddle the UK with a £136.7 billion NHS and welfare burden by 2020.

Last year the Advisory Group on Contraception found that 3.2m women of child bearing age faced restrictions to accessing contraception.

And in the areas where restrictions were greatest, the abortion rate was 9.75 per cent higher than areas with no restrictions.

The Family Planning Association (FPA) and Brook commissioned Unprotected Nation to look at what might happen if access to sexual health services remained the same, got better or worsened between now and 2020.

If access remains the same, unintended pregnancy and STIs could cost the UK between £84.4 billion and £127 billion.

If cuts continue and there is worsened access – with more people being denied access to contraceptive methods and information – the additional cost to the NHS plus wider public sector costs could total between£8.3 billion and £10 billion, a tenth of the total NHS budget in 2012-13.

If there is improved access, the NHS and the public sector could save between £3.7 billion and £5.1 billion by 2020.

Simon Blake, Brook’s chief executive, said that the national sexual health and teenage pregnancy strategies had ended and the NHS was under intense pressure to make savings.

“This report makes very clear just how short-sighted restrictions to contraception services are – particularly for young people who have to navigate this void alongside a black hole in sex and relationships education programmes,” he said

“The wheels of this crisis are firmly in motion.

"Investment in sexual health saves money, but if national and local government ignore the warnings and continue stripping away services, advice and information, the bleak predictions in this report will come true,” added Dr Audrey Simpson, acting chief executive, FPA.

As a result, the charities have launched a campaign called XES - We Can't Go Backward to raise awareness about the consequences of cuts to sexual health services.

They are asking supporters to sign up to a Bill of Rights to guarantee women accessible, confidential and timely sexual health and contraception services across the UK, write to their MP asking them to support these aims and to rate their own experiences of contraception and sexual health services on an on-line map.

Anne Connolly, a GP in Bradford and chair of the Primary Care Women’s Health Forum, said: “Maintaining progress requires investment and if we are brave enough to invest money at a time when there is pressure to disinvest there are massive cost savings as well as quality of life savings to be made.”

Workplace progress on equality slow

More companies have equal opportunities policies, but fewer monitor recruitment, pay and promotion.

The latest Workplace Employment Relations Study was released last week.

This government-sponsored research measures areas like employee satisfaction, training, working hours and equal opportunities in public and private organisations of all sizes across the UK.

The report looked at all workplaces with 5 or more employees in the British economy, excluding workplaces in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and mining and quarrying.

It represents 35 per cent of all workplaces and 90 per cent of all employees in Britain; almost 750,000 workplaces and 23.3 million employees.

The study, carried out during 2011-12, found the majority, 51 per cent, of workers in the organisations sampled were women.

Nearly a tenth were from ethnic minorities, nearly a quarter are over 50 and nearly a tenth are foreign nationals.

The number of disabled workers had risen from 1 per cent in 2004 when the last survey was completed, to 2 per cent in 2011.

Three quarters of firms had written equal opportunities policies, compared with 67 per cent in 2004, and 

in 2011 these were more likely to mention age and sexual orientation.

Fewer mentioned discrimination on the basis of gender – 82 per cent, compared with 87 per cent in 2004.

A third of all workplaces had a strategic plan covering employee diversity with objectives, compared to 29 per cent in 2004.  These were more likely to be in place in large organisations.

However, few employers monitor recruitment, pay and promotion by equality characteristics like age, gender or disability.  Only 3 per cent compare relative pay rates, 7 per cent monitor promotion and 14 per cent monitor recruitment and selection.

Only 8 per cent have special procedures to attract job applicants from women and disabled people, and even less take special measures to attract workers from ethnic minorities and older people.  Fewer companies operate these types of schemes than in 2004.

And a quarter of firms in 2011 offered Equal Opportunities training, compared with a fifth in 2004.

When it comes to flexible working, the picture is mixed.

The proportion of workplaces where some employees were able to work from home or work compressed hours increased between 2004 and 2011.

In contrast, the proportion of workplaces with job sharing or reduced hours fell, and the proportion of employers offering flexitime remained the same.

And more mangers now think it is up to individual employees to manage their work and family responsibilities, 76 per cent in 2011, compared to 66 per cent in 2004.

Baby boom pressure on maternity services

England is 5,000 midwives short claims Royal College.

The Royal College of Midwives [RCM] has just published its annual State of Maternity Services report.

The report quotes figures from the Office for National Statistics which show the number of new babies born, especially in England, is booming.

There were 688,120 babies born in England in 2011, 124,000 or 22 per cent more than in 2001, the highest number since 1971.

This trend is set to continue, at least until 2014, when 743,000 babies are expected to be born in England, a third more than in 2001.

And the number of older mothers is also increasing, up 81 per cent in England since 2001 - and older mothers can experience more complications during pregnancy and birth than younger women.

Yet the number of midwives has barely kept pace with these changes.

There were 3,000 more midwives in England in 2012 than 2001, up 19 per cent.

The Royal College of Midwives estimates that England is short of 5,000 full time midwives, and this shortage is affecting the quality of care they can provide.

It quotes a Bounty Word of Mum survey in 2012 which found 20 per cent of respondents did not feel supported by the NHS during their pregnancy and birth, 40 per cent said they saw a different midwife each time and 30 per cent said they were not adequately supported after the birth.

In 2011 half of the midwives in England were over 45 years old, compared to a third in 2002.

The government plans an extra 2,576 training places in 2012/13, which should help reverse this trend, so the number of training places in England should reach 6,000 for the first time – a development the report hails as a ‘real milestone’.

But the RCM said had recently received reports from newly-qualified midwives saying that they were finding it hard to find work.

“Student midwives’ hard work and taxpayers’ money invested in their valuable training should not be squandered by a short-sighted approach to cost reduction,” said the report.

According to the report, the baby boom has trailed off in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the RCM believes this should an opportunity to improve care, not cut midwife numbers.

Scotland has maintained training numbers, and the RCM believes there is not currently a shortage, but there could be in future, because of the age of current midwives.

The RCM has put Wales 'on watch', as training numbers have been trimmed and midwife numbers are falling.