Seven years after the Equality Act came into force, forcing businesses to implement gender equality measures, representatives from the CCOO and UGT unions are observing difficulties in the field when negotiating and monitoring the enforcement of equality measures. Ana Herranz, confederal secretary in charge of equality at CCOO, and Almudena Fontecha, her counterpart at UGT, are answering Planet Labor’s questions on the assessment of this law, degraded by the economic situation.
- Act LO 3/2007 of March 22, 2007 (see article No. 070315) provides that all businesses with 250 workers or more are under the obligation to open dialogue with the employee representatives to do a diagnosis of discriminations and come up with the appropriate solutions. What is your assessment after 7 years of Equality Act?
Almudena Fontecha. Our assessment isn’t very good. These pas few years, we’ve observed a slowdown in terms of equality initiatives. This comes hand in hand with the problems collective bargaining is facing, greatly altered by the 2012 labor reform, which has made relations at work and social dialogue more complicated – also with an impact on equality issues.
Do you have information to share with us?