Gender Matters in Collective Bargaining

Abstract

Collective agreements are one way of improving women’s position on the labour market, a way which the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) also emphasised in its platform for action. From a European perspective, the issue of collective bargaining in the context of equal opportunities has additional importance given the increasing feminisation of the European labour market and the need for employment policies and trade union strategies to respond to such change. In many countries workers and employers have agreed on wider or more specific programmes with the aim of promoting equality. Collective agreements are a valuable way of trying to explicitly address discriminatory practices (e.g. Bercusson and Dickens, 1995).