Equal opportunities

Abstract

Community-level action to promote equal opportunities for workers can be justified by reference to two basic principles laid out in the EEC Treaty. One of those principles, contained in Article 117, is that member states ‘agree upon the need to promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living for workers, so as to make possible their harmonisation while the improvement is being maintained’. This principle of ‘harmonisation upwards’ is of particular significance for those workers in the Community currently disadvantaged because of their sex, race, nationality or disability.