Equal opportunities and collective bargaining in the European Union

A case study from Luxembourg Phase III WP/97/75/EN EUROPEAN FOUNDATION for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions EUROPEAN FOUNDATION for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions Equal opportunities and collective bargaining in the European Union A case study from Luxembourg Phase III by Monique Laroche-Reeff Working Paper No.: WP/97/75/EN EUROPEAN FOUNDATION for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions Summary _________________________________________________________________________ In Luxembourg, the percentage of women in the labour market is among the lowest in Europe. There are scarcely any women in top managerial posts. Conversely, women are vastly over-represented in precarious jobs, among workers on the statutory minimum wage and among the unemployed. Women and men are equal before the law, but there has been no sign to date of a voluntarist policy on the part of either the Government or the social partners to translate this legal equality into everyday reality. It emerges from the first two reports compiled within the framework of the present research into equal opportunities and collective bargaining that there are not yet any collective agreements in Luxembourg which express the explicit intention of working towards equality of opportunity between women and men and which contain a coherent plan of affirmative action designed to combat vertical and horizontal segregation between the jobs of the two sexes. The third stage of the present research could not therefore comprise a case study of an agreement on equal opportunities as envisaged by the European programme. Instead, it focuses on current developments which may pave the way for the future negotiation of such agreements and, beyond the scope of collective agreements, which only cover a minority of women in any case, for a global policy in favour of genuine equality of opportunity between women and men in the labour market. 1996 and the start of 1997 were marked by a number of events, initiatives and developments which enable us to conclude that things have indeed started to move. In particular, the following may be cited: the exploratory debates in the Chamber of Deputies, based on public hearings to which associations and bodies working on behalf of women had been invited to present their positions, the numerous demands made by activist women's organizations, which emphasized clearly that they had been waiting too long for concrete measures that would enable women and men, on an equal footing, to combine a career with family and social responsibilities, EUROPEAN FOUNDATION for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions a certain increase in the willingness of the social partners t