As it does every year, the European Commission has published a statement pointing out that 3 November is the day when European women workers stop being paid, given the pay gap between men and women. It as announced that it will be unveiling a proposal in 2017 to strike a balance between home and working life but makes no mention of the deadlock at the Council over quotas for women.
European Equal Pay Day on 3 November is the day when women start working without pay because the average hourly rate for European women is 16.7% less than that for men so in effect, women have to work 16.7% of the year for free. This is a European average, with big gaps between countries, ranging from a 28% pay gap in Estonia to 4.5% in Romania.
Glass ceilings are still in existence. Although more women than men gain university qualifications, only 5% of company chiefs in the EU are women, which is a waste of female talent, explained European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen and Equality Commissioner Vera Jourová in a joint statement. They explain that women generally work in less well-paid sectors and men are less likely to interrupt their careers to look after their children or parents and therefore in most cases, women spend less time doing paid work and have more problems with combining professional and family life, saying that the EU will publish a new proposal in this domain in 2017.
Experience shows that draft EU legislation to protect women is not easy to have passed by the member states. Since the maternity leave directive a few years ago, the Council is currently blocking the draft directive unveiled in 2012 on quotas for women on company boards in Europe. The Slovak Presidency – which is preparing an answer to a written question from Lithuanian MEP Vilija Blinkevičiūtė (S&D) on progress with the directive – has decided to leave the directive to one side (as did the Dutch Presidency before it), in the sense of organising no meeting on it. It says that this is not because Slovakia is part of the vetoing minority but because is has decided to focus on more advanced dossiers, such as workers’ exposure to chemicals or the posting of workers, given the huge number of draft directives on the table, but it has heard that the Maltese Presidency will be tackling the matter. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)