Common Efforts in Favour of Women with Unfair Wages

By Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO)

The LO General Council decided at its meeting on October 27 on a new strategy to raise the wages of women who are unfairly paid.

. In the collective bargaining round of 2007, the LO affiliates demand a specific equality purse. It is to be allocated to different sectors according to the proportion of women with a monthly wage lower than 20.000 SEK within each sector.

- Previous efforts to raise women's wages only by means of general actions for low-wage groups have not led to satisfactory results. Now the LO affiliates have agreed upon a new strategy based on both class and gender. We hope that this method will improve the situation of women with wrongful wages, Wanja Lundby-Wedin, President of LO, states.

Discrimination on the ground of gender in the labour market is shown in many different ways. For instance, jobs dominated by women are worse paid. The higher the proportion of women in a sector, the lower the wages. LO has since long tried to remedy this situation. The demand to be pursued now in the collective bargaining is a decisive step towards succeeding in this.

- This will be to the benefit of all, not only women. An unequal labour market is a threat to all members, according to Erland Olauson, negotiations secretary at LO and responsible for coordination between the LO affiliates.

The coordinated demands also contain, inter alia:

- Efforts in favour of the lowest wages in the agreement. The position of the collective agreement is to be reinforced in order to reduce the risk of wage competition and to ensure more equitable distribution.

- A new pension insurance agreement between LO and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, equivalent to the agreement recently concluded for salaried employees in the private sector.