Brussels, 19/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament is disappointed that European legislation on employment and the directives on fixed term contracts, part-time or temporary work is not appropriately addressed to workers in precarious situations. It is therefore urging the Commission and member states to take specific legislative measures, such as the introduction of a binding social minimum for employees and ensuring everyone equal access to social services and benefits in accordance with their working conditions.
Participating in the labour market, training for workers, decent jobs, organising papers for seasonal workers and migrants, are the main demands formulated in the report by Britta Thomsen (S&D, Denmark) on, “workers in precarious situations” adopted by a show of hands on Tuesday 19 October in Strasbourg.
In so doing, MEPs have decided to improve the quality of work carried out by women and who are overrepresented in precarious jobs. It also will help reduce existing division between men and women. MEPs are requesting that legislative measures are used to guarantee gender equality and reduce the segregation of men and women on the labour market. This is why they are calling on the Commission to submit a proposal to it on applying the equal pay principle between men and women.
Ms Thomsen stated to the plenary that, “what we need more than ever is for the European Union to take measures to improve the position of women in the labour market so that Europe is aligned on the contents of the treaty. If this is not forthcoming we will move towards a demographic crisis, which will be at least as serious as the economic crisis we are currently experiencing”. She also said, “wherever these women come from - Portugal, Poland, the Balkans, Bulgaria -, they must be treated in the same way on the labour market. A great step towards equality must be a step taken in the context of legislative quality”. She declared that women in the EU had few children and that if they wanted to remain competitive, create growth, and maintain their level of welfare and prosperity, it would be necessary to have more children being born in the EU. She said that this was the reason why they needed basic holidays with full pay, without forgetting that men also had an important role to play. She noted that this involved high social standards in this context. She explained that women in precarious working situations or who had “little jobs” without Social Security are more exposed to discrimination and poor working conditions. The MEP affirmed that they should not accept that women worked in such poor conditions and called on the EU to support member states replace precarious jobs with good working conditions.
The vice president of the Commission, Maros Sefcovic, emphasised that the Commission had already made progress for integrating women into the labour market. He also stated that, “if they do not have a decent job, women do not have the economic independence, which is a prerequisite for controlling their own lives”.
In her report, Britta Thomsen underlined that precarious kinds of jobs predicated a kind of “non-standard” job with the following characteristics: little or no employment security due to its non-permanent, often occasional nature, with contracts stipulating poor conditions or where there is no written contract at all; low levels of pay, which is sometimes not declared and changeable; no right to social protection or employment related benefits; no protection against discrimination, limited prospects for advancing in the labour market, an absence of union representation for workers and a working environment, which does not correspond to the minimum safety and health standards. (G.B.)