Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-24-Speech-4-017-000"

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"Madam President, despite the introduction of legislation, and national, EU and international guidelines, there is still a problem of wage discrimination and it is becoming worse. Women receive 16.4% less than men in the EU, and the wage gap is increasing. This report seeks to tackle this issue once again and, although we would like to make some comments, we agree with it and believe that it is generally positive. At present, one of the labour rights that has been under greatest attack as part of the labour reforms across Europe is the principle of collective agreement, which is one of the most important ways of protecting female workers from wage discrimination. It should therefore have been given a more prominent role within this report. Moreover, in view of the trend towards greater precariousness in labour policy, we refuse to support measures that insist on making labour relations even more flexible. One of the aspects of this report that we value highest is the fact that it advocates sanctions for employers that do not comply with the principle of equal pay. We do not, however, take the view that employers discriminate against women in terms of pay because they are ignorant of equality, or because they are absent-minded. When an employer has a policy of discriminating against women, it is rational, intentional and deliberate. The higher the level of wage discrimination, the lower women’s pay, and the higher the profits of the employers. Only by applying sanctions that are more expensive for the employers than getting rid of wage discrimination can they be deterred from this illegal practice. Finally, we cannot neglect to say that so-called austerity policies will not help to realise the right to equal pay, as they destroy jobs and reduce wages, thereby putting enormous pressure on workers to accept low wages; rather, they will merely sideline, trivialise and destroy equal pay altogether."@en1
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