Some progress in bargaining on equal opportunities and reconciling work and family life

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According to information published in summer 2002, there was some progress in the treatment of equal opportunities between men and women and reconciling work and family life in collective bargaining in Spain in 2001. In particular, new legal regulations on reconciling work and family life were implemented and in some cases improved upon. Though the collective agreements dealing with these subjects are still few, they may reflect a more profound change in awareness of these issues.

There has been a clear tendency since the mid-1990s for the content of collective bargaining to become progressively enriched. Successive labour market reforms, particularly those of 1994 and 1997 (ES9706211F), have reinforced the autonomy of the social partners and given greater freedom to bargaining. Reports on collective bargaining in 2001 drawn up during the first half of 2002 by a variety of organisations - the General Workers’ Confederation (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT), the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CC.OO), the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, CEOE) and the Economic and Social Council (Consejo Economico y Social, CES) - offer different assessments, but all point out some basic aspects such as the greater complexity of bargaining on pay and working time, and the consolidation of bargaining on employment, recruitment, training, occupational classification and health and safety at work.

These reports also stress the increasing importance of other issues, though they are not always given sufficient attention: these include equal opportunities for men and women, and reconciling work and family life. Below, we describes how these questions were approached during collective bargaining in 2001.

Equal opportunities for men and women

There has been an increase in the number of clauses in collective agreements on non-discrimination or equal opportunities for men and women since the mid-1990s, though this increase seems to have stagnated in 2001. In 1994, these clauses affected 24% of workers, which rose to 35% in 2000 and 2001. In 2001, such clauses were present in 14% of company agreements (covering 30% of workers) and 20% of sectoral agreements (covering 35% of workers).

Though many of these clauses are mere declarations of intentions with little or no binding content, the trade unions claim that there have been some advances in agreements on issues related to working time, occupational classification, promotion, employment and pay, that favour the establishment of equal opportunities. Though these agreements are few in number, they reflect the interest in going beyond rhetoric to introduce measures that genuinely favour greater equality. On the subject of employment, examples of such accords include the Madrid metalworking sector agreement and the national insurance sector agreement, which establish that joint commissions will study the specific problems encountered by women in access to employment in these sectors in order to increase their presence.

Reconciliation of work and family life

It seems that collective bargaining is showing greater dynamism in incorporating the terms of the law on reconciling work and family life that came into force in late 1999 (ES9911165F). In this area there are no official statistics, but the CC.OO secretary for women has conducted a specific study on a sample of agreements in 2001, and reached the following conclusions:

• of the new aspects regulated by the 1999 law, paid leave for family reasons is the one that receives most attention in collective bargaining. Some agreements merely incorporate the new legislation, but others establish improvements, mainly aimed at increasing the number of days of leave, recognising paid leave for dealing with adoption and fostering procedures, and establishing a new type of leave for accompanying children and dependents to visit doctors;

• most of the agreements that introduce improvements with regard to the reduction of working time for family reasons refer to breastfeeding breaks, increasing such breaks by 30 minutes or increasing the age of babies for which this right is granted. In other cases, the number of hours of reduced working time for family care is increased or the accumulation of this time is permitted;

• other improvements include the recognition of family-related time-off rights for common law couples, exemption from flexible working time arrangements for persons whose presence in the company is limited due to care of children, breastfeeding or pregnancy, and making maternity leave compatible with holidays. In some cases financial improvements established by an agreement with relation to sick leave are extended to situations of suspension of contract during pregnancy; and

• in the case of leave of absence, most agreements reproduce the content of the law, but in some cases they introduce limitations to the exercise of this right, such as requiring a certain length of service, establishing a minimum period of leave or restricting the possibility of leave to only one parent.

Commentary

Equal opportunities and reconciling work and family life clearly receive insufficient attention in collective bargaining. Few agreements deal with these issues, and in many cases their inclusion is more a question of rhetoric than of effective measures. However, the new law on reconciling work and family life seems to be having a positive effect, not only due to the improvements that have been agreed, which increased in 2001 though they are still few, but also because the existence of these new regulations seems to be highlighting a problem that is often neglected in collective agreements. This tendency was confirmed in late 2001 by the central agreement laying down guidelines for collective bargaining in 2002 (ES0201207F), in which the social partners explicitly recommend the promotion of actions aimed at eliminating pay discrimination and favouring equal opportunities for men and women in employment and recruitment. In the next few months it will be possible to assess the effectiveness of this recommendation. In any case, it seems clear that this is a field in which collective bargaining could and should develop considerably in the next few years. (Maria Caprile, CIREM)