MANAGING EQUALITY

One main strategic level to ensure real and progressive equal opportunities in training and employment is the elaboration and implementation of policies at all levels where discrimination operates. These policies must be able to activate synergy among various social actors, public and private, governmental and non-governmental, designing general paths where each agency or institution according to its characteristics and objectives might insert its own programme and multiply the effect of the programme.

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An active women promotion policy must not only assess better employment opportunities through development programmes (employment policies and also vocational guidance and vocational training) but must also encourage cultural change in all its dimensions (roles and tasks assigned to women, work and occupational qualification parameters, responsibility for senior citizens and children.) An active policy of women promotion must also have a follow up of its own standards and objectives.

The promotion of equality is a cross cutting task for all sectors of development intervention and all technical fields and at the same time it is part of them. To consider women conditions and their specific interests is not only a moral imperative but also a practical necessity that concerns not only women or volunteers but all the social partners involved in the development process: governments, workers, employers, NGO, international organisations, etc. An equal opportunity policy on employment and training is necessary not merely for reasons of equity and fairness but also because it contributes to economic and social development. It is also intimately linked to adequate human resource management since it implies an optimisation of human capital (men and women) that will increment competitiveness of enterprises and of the country as a whole.

The above highlights the need for both macro policies and specific actions at the micro level in order to achieve equality between men and women. The combined action at the macro and micro level offers practical solutions to specific women problems and at the same time allows for the satisfaction of their strategic needs concerning the vindication of their role in society.

Managing gender equality on work and training from the point of view of government, trade unions, enterprises or community, or from international organisations and technical cooperation requires interventions meant to:

a. Suppress or counter stereotypes effects on female entry into working life or job searching.

b. Encourage female participation in occupations with better economic and professional development and in sectors or posts where they are underrepresented and also make employers to be favourably receptive.

c. Diversify female professional options and support them in the acquisition of a more relevant training.

d. Ensure that the services of job placement, vocational guidance and counselling have the adequate number of qualified personnel that understands female workers and unemployment problems.

e. Adapt work conditions and work organisation and time schedules to women needs.

f. Over watch that men and women share more equally the family, labour and social responsibilities .

g. Favour active women participation in public, private and trade union institutions that adopt decisions concerning the employment market and vocational training.

h. Disseminate norms that regulate female work and ensure its knowledge by beneficiaries.

i. Give instruments to entrepreneurs and trade union organisations to design policies and activities to achieve these objectives and encourage social partners to promote in their organisations and work places positive actions.

k. Promote the development of human resources policies in private and public institutions that have the objective of achieving social equal opportunities and assist them in the follow up and application.

l. Promote systematic incorporation of the gender perspective in collective bargaining.

This space has been conceived to give support to trade unions, workers, and enterprises in their efforts in managing equality. In order to succeed, they must take into account social and cultural values of the beneficiaries and the society to which they belong as well as the characteristics and singularities of labour relations in the country.

Regarding this objective we present national and international programmes, tools and experiences at the following levels:

- Trade union action regarding gender
- Entrepreneur action towards equality

This section is devoted to international organizations intervention, particularly ILO interventions: EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES