Government and trade union positions on gender equality highlighted

Sweden holds the Presidency of the European Union during the first half of 2001, and has made gender equality one of its priorities. This feature examines the current views and strategies of the Swedish government and trade unions on the equality issue.

On 1 January 2001, Sweden took over the Presidency of the European Union for the first half of 2001. On 20 November 2000, the country's three main trade union confederations - the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO), the Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations (Sveriges Akademikers Centralorganisation, SACO) and the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation, TCO) - sent a joint official letter to the government. The letter included a strong recommendation that the Swedish EU Presidency should focus on equality between women and men. It was intended to show that the trade unions support and approve of the government's attitude to gender equality issues, while stressing the significance that they attach to such issues issues in question.

The Swedish EU Presidency has indeed given some priority to equal opportunities issues. For example, in its work programme, it states that:

A gender equality perspective must inform all EU activities, particularly in the area of employment. Gender equality is about democracy and justice, about according women and men equal worth. It is also about equal division of economic and political power. One of the most important goals is that women and men should have equal access to employment and thereby support themselves. This involves studying the extent to which the structure of tax, benefits and social insurance systems encourages or deters women from engaging in gainful employment, removing unwarranted pay differentials between women and men, and taking measures to ensure that women and men are able to combine gainful employment and family responsibilities. Efforts to develop methods for comparisons between countries in the gender equality sphere will be pursued. Both women and men must take part in gender equality endeavours. The matter of men's involvement in particular will be highlighted. The Swedish Presidency will also accord priority to the work of combating violence against women.

The EU Presidency has highlighted the gender equality issue in Sweden, and below we examine the current government's policy in this area, along with the views of LO as set out in a report on Gender and class 2000 (Kön och klass 2000), published in January 2001.

The government's policy

In November 1999 the current Social Democrat government presented to parliament a communication entitled Gender equality policy into the 21st century (Jämställdhetspolitiken inför 2000-talet, skrivelse 1999/2000:24). The communication described developments in the gender equality area over the past few years, including measures initiated by the government and current work at central, regional and local level. In describing its gender equality policy, the government stated that the overall objective is a society in which women and men have the same opportunities, rights and obligations in all major spheres of life. This means:

• equal distribution of power and influence;

• equal opportunities for financial independence;

• equal conditions and opportunities with regard to working conditions and development at work, and setting up businesses;

• equal access to education and the opportunity to develop personal ambitions, interests and talents;

• shared responsibility for the home and children; and

• freedom from gender-related violence

The government has, it is stated, collective responsibility for achieving these gender policy objectives and each minister is responsible for promoting a gender quality in their policy area. The minister for gender equality, Margaretha Winberg, coordinates the work in this area and is responsible for the follow up and further development of gender policy. Since 1994, the overall approach in the government office has been that gender equality work is part of day-to-day political and administrative work and that a gender perspective should always be present at all levels. "Gender mainstreaming" is another way of describing this approach, a term used in many connections in recent years (not least from the European Commission- see, for example, its 2001-5 Community framework strategy for gender equality[EU0007264F]). The government sees mainstreaming as a strategy and a method for achieving gender equality goals. It means that:

• different conditions and requirements should be identified for men and women;

• every question that concerns individuals should be examined from a gender perspective; and

• the expected consequences of change for women and men respectively should be analysed.

Practical initiatives

What has been done in practice so far? In 1994, the Social Democrat government instructed the national statistical office, Statistics Sweden, henceforth to deliver all official statistics in such a way as to provide figures on both men and women unless there are special reasons for not doing so. The current government has organised courses in gender equality for ministers, state secretaries, press secretaries, political advisers, heads of division and other personnel at ministries and other public authorities, as well as for committee secretaries and commissioners. The purpose of the training has been to: deepen awareness of men's and women's conditions; disseminate information about gender equality policy; and increase the officials' understanding of their own responsibility in the work of mainstreaming a gender perspective.

In order to support the ministries in assessing whether a proposal or decision will have a gender impact, the division for gender equality at the Ministry for Industry, Employment and Communications (Näringsdepartementet) has constructed an analysis tool, currently being tested in various ministerial divisions. The tool is very simple and consists of a couple of questions, starting with: Does the document (that the official is working with) affect one or more target groups? When the answer is yes, a gender perspective should be applied and the analysis should continue as follows: What are the conditions for women and men respectively in the policy area in question? How can the different or similar conditions for women and men in the particular area be explained?. What assessable measures are planned in order to achieve the gender policy objectives?

The Equal Opportunities Ombudsman (Jämställdhetsombudsmannen, JämO), which began activities in 1980, functions under the aegis of the Ministry for Industry, Employment and Communications and the minister responsible for gender equality. The main tasks of the JämO are to deal with cases of wage discrimination and other gender discrimination in working life and possibly bring them to the Labour Court (Arbetsdomstolen), and to give advice and information to employers and employees. The JämO's activities are governed by the Act Concerning Equality Between Men and Women (jämställdhetslagen), which came into force in it original version in 1980 and has been amended several times since (SE0102179N).

Finally, the government has carried out gender policies in all sectors of its activity. Notably, all government agencies in the labour market area must promote actively the right of men and women to work on equal terms, and counteract the division of labour along gender lines.

Strategies for trade union work

The aim of LO's mid-January 2001 report on Gender and class is to develop strategies for trade union work on gender equality and increase the knowledge of this issue within the organisation. The report calls on LO's member unions to make differences in treatment of men and women more visible. The target group is local trade union representatives within all 18 LO-affiliated unions, and the report should be discussed and studied at the workplace.

The study highlights the fact that there are clear differences in Sweden today between female and male workers' conditions on the labour market, which is relatively segregated and features differences in pay and employment conditions for men and women, mostly to the disadvantage of the latter. On average, a female blue-collar worker's wages are only 80% of the wages of an equivalent man. For LO, an equal society and working life requires the same rights, obligations and possibilities for women and men to have a job that provides economic independence and possibilities for personal development, among other things. During the period 2000-4, LO should focus on the following issues in gender equality work directed at employers:

1. employers should seek to recruit both men and women at the workplace;

2. women should have possibilities to acquire skilled work tasks;

3. employers should prevent and counteract discrimination and sexual harassment at the workplace; and

4. both male and female workers should be encouraged to take parental leave.

On the issue of equal pay for work of equal value, LO demands that employers should create full-time, rather than part-time, employment. Employers should also develop ways of achieving a "gender-equal" workplace. They should draw up their personnel policy from a gender perspective, investigate wage and other working conditions and address any deficiencies.

In order to strengthen trade union work in the gender equality area, LO and its affiliates should, for example:

1. have in place or draw up strategies for increased female representation;

2. provide information on female and male representation in trade union governing bodies in annual reports, and make efforts to address deficiencies in this area;

3. increase the participation of women in LO's trade union and political tasks through special efforts;

4. provide special gender-equality education for union representatives; and

5. develop statistics which provide gender-differentiated information.

Earlier membership surveys conducted in 1998 and 1999 indicated that LO members view gender equality as among the most important areas for trade union work.

The aims and strategy set out in the new LO report indicate that this union confederation has attitudes to gender equality policy rather similar to those of the government - unsurprisingly given that it is quite close to the governing Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiska Arbetarepartiet, SAP). The TCO and SACO confederations follow the same line, although they focus more on seeking to adjust unfair wage differences between male and female employees. However, they do not currently have the same ambitious plans and strategies as LO, the gender equality issue having been more or less on the agenda for at least 20 years. Nevertheless, TCO stated in a recent policy document that equality between men and women in society and working life is a basic union demand. (The gender equality positions of public sector employers will be examined in a forthcoming EIRO feature).

Commentary

Sweden has come a long way towards gender equality, Minister Margareta Winberg stated when opening one of the first gender equality meetings held under the Swedish EU Presidency. However, she emphasised that the work towards achieving gender equality is of a long-term nature, requiring determination, patience, commitment and knowledge. Sweden indeed still has a long way to go: although women make up the majority of members in certain trade unions, they are far from equally represented on trade union governing; women are seldom members of company boards; professionally educated women do not receive the same salaries as male colleagues of the same age and with jobs of equal value; and female blue-collar workers receive on average about 80% of male workers' pay. The list goes on, with various reports constantly reiterating the same points. Government and trade union pressure may mean that the often very slow daily work on gender equality matters at local level in many areas may move a little faster. (Annika Berg, Arbetslivsinstitutet)