28,B 86 Official]ournal of the European Communities ^oC189A31 
Opimonone^ualopportumtiesfor^omen— medium term Oommumty programme— 1986 
to 1990^) 
(86^0 189^12) 
On241anuaryl986 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee,under 
Article 198 oftheTreaty establishing theEuropean Economic Community on the above mentioned 
programme. 
The Section for Social 0^uestions,v^hichv^as responsible for preparing the Oommittee^sv^orl^ on 
the subject, adopted its opinion on!0Ap^ill986,m^he light of the report by ^lrsEngelend(efer, 
At its 236thplenary session (meetingof 24 April 1986) the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted the following opinion unanimously. 
1, Introduction 
1.1, The question of equal opportunities for women is 
one which concerns society asawhole.lt is nota^purely 
women^ matter, still less one which is currently 
inappropriate. The fundamental principle of equal rights is 
not one whose puttinginto effect can be postponed until the 
economic climate improves, especially when it is the 
present economic situation which has exacerbated female 
unemployment and discnminatoryconditions, 
1.2, Thisis why the Economic and SocialCommittee 
endorsed the previous 1982 to!98^ action programmed) 
and the specific proposals arising from it, notably the draft 
Uirectiveson 
— occupational social security schemes (^), 
— parental leave and leave for family reasons (^), 
— selPemployed women (^), 
(Uraft tOn^ectives on voluntary part-time worl^ and on 
temporary worl^, which relate to the promotion of equal 
opportunities for women, have also been proposed by the 
Commission and endorsed by the Committee,) 
1.3, The Committee likewise welcomes the new 1986 to 
1990 action programme and the proposals indicated in it 
and in the resolution, progress achieved under the first 
programme should be continued and intensified. 
2, Oeneral comments 
2,1, The Committee registers that, whilst having 
adopted various nonDbinding policy statements following 
(^)oi^Dei^,^^^^ 
(^oi^DC^,^^i^4 
(^oi^De^^,^^i^4 the 1982 to 198^ action programmed),the Council has at 
the same time blocked the binding lon^ectives listed above 
fortheimplementationofsuchpohcies. The Committee 
notesthat morepohtical willandpersuasion, and more 
majority voting at European level, might facilitate the 
adoption of such binding Community measures on equal 
opportunities for women. In this connection, the CommisD 
sion could have set out more clearly in the current proposal 
its main reasons for these measures, together with 
supporting arguments adopted by the European^arhament 
and the Committee, and on so doing have provided a 
considered response to questions and political considers 
ations officially raised, 
2.2, The Committee stresses the need foracoherent and 
resolute Community policy decisionmaking approach 
towards equal opportunities for women. This is especially 
the case in view of the fact that unemployment among 
women in Europe is increasing atasignificantly faster rate 
than for the wording population as a whole (see point 
3.3.1), and is accentuated further by family income 
squeezes forcing some womenoutontoaprecanous and 
discriminatory labour market where available ^obs are few 
and often on the basis of short-term contracts not 
adequately covered in terms of social protection. The 
promotion and integration of equal opportunity measures 
clearly have to be budgeted for, though social policy 
coherence and development on this matter should not be 
postponed on economic or procedural grounds. The 
principle of equal opportunities for women is enshrined in 
Articlell9oftheTreaty,likewise, withregardtocollective 
action,it is worth recalling fore^ampletheunammous 
Council conclusion of 22junel984^differences between 
the institutions and social policies do not preclude the 
implementation of ^oint measures aimed at gradually 
promotmgaEuropean social area^(E There isaneed to 
consolidate and intensify ^oint measures for the promotion 
of equal opportunities both at Community level and 
throughout the member States. Indeed, provisions already 
adopted overadecade ago relating to equal pay and equal 
treatment are constantly in danger of being undermined. 
^mDi^t^Dm^ (oj eMem^n^i ^ i^4) ^ e^^it 
T^Dmm^ml^nD^ Dl^ t^ D^^mDtlD^ D^ De^ltlV^ ^^tlDl^ fD^ 
^Din^(01^^L^n^^l^4) 
(^)01^DCl^,4^1^4,Dl 
No C 189/32 Official Journal of the European Communities 28. 7. 86 
2.3. In this sense, the Commission proposal should be 
more rigorous and selective, both in terms of indicating 
clear priorities and more resolve on key issues and 
measures. The draft resolution ought to include a 
streamlined set of actions described in the explanatory 
communication. Likewise, the Commission should set out 
a series of dates and deadlines for the completion and 
intensification of measures proposed. 
2.4. The ultimate target, in employment terms, is that of 
assuring women the same right and access to jobs as men, 
and to ensure equal career prospects together with equal 
pay and conditions for equal work. Discriminatory 
practices which impede such equality of opportunity are 
not only wrong in principle; they are also conducive in 
practice to lower efficiency, lower motivation and lower 
overall standards both in industry and for society as a 
whole. Joint measures and specific actions which effect­
ively promote equal opportunities are still clearly called 
for. In this connection, it is not feasible at present to impose 
a rigid quota system for female training and job place­
ments. The Committee therefore strongly recommends 
positive actions, agreed by management and the workforce, 
in order to set clear targets for proper female opportunities 
especially as regards training, recruitment and career 
prospects. The implementation of such positive actions 
should be regularly monitored at all levels. In the final 
event, however, real and sustained reform will only come 
about through a new, objective awareness of the question. 
This is why legal measures, whilst necessary, are not 
sufficient in themselves, and must be accompanied by a 
vigorous campaign to change entrenched attitudes. 
3. Specific comments 
3.1. Action A — Improved application of existing 
measures 
3.1.1. The Committee suggests that, for the principle of 
equal treatment in employment to be applied and upheld 
both legally and in practice, Member States should set up 
permanent and effective instruments of control and 
monitoring with regard to existing Directives 75/117/EEC, 
76/207/EEC and 79/7/EEC. Such instruments could be 
merged within new or existing independent national 
apparatus for equal opportunities, such as the British Equal 
Opportunities Commission or the Dutch Emancipation 
Council (Emancipatieraad), etc. Their work could be 
supplemented by national, regional and local networks 
involving social and labour-market institutes, official 
bodies, worker and employer representatives and rep­
resentatives of other socio-professional groups, etc., which 
would jointly help to initiate and regularly supervise equal 
opportunity measures and developments. This should be done without interference in day-to-day business at 
company and plant level, where management and workers 
and their representatives should jointly apply, monitor and 
develop equal opportunity measures. 
3.1.2. The Committee considers that the Commission 
proposal for alterations in favour of moves towards the 
reversal of the burden of proof, as applied to equal 
opportunities cases, would merit approval and needs 
careful appraisal. Experience (l) would show that such a 
method would help redress the continuing infringement of 
equal rights, and would help establish an improved balance 
between the number of legitimate cases brought before the 
law as compared to the (actual) disproportionately higher 
number of cases of discrimination which take place. 
Reversing the burden of proof, moreover, would encourage 
and stimulate good employment practices and modern 
personnel techniques, both of which are in the interests of 
forward-looking management. It should be stressed, 
nonetheless, that the proposed Directive ought to con­
centrate on the basic principle involved, and provide 
Member States sufficient scope and flexibility in its legal 
application and in order to guard against possible abuses by 
motivated interest groups launching indiscriminate cam­
paigns irrespective of employers' reputations and codes of 
behaviour. 
3.2. Action B — education and training 
3.2.1. The Committee advocates the extension of co­
education practices. It further stresses the need to 
discourage early educational and vocational specialization 
at school, often based on stereotyped or inadequate 
information, counselling and guidance. A core curriculum 
should be provider for all young pupils, treating a broad 
range of areas and facilitating in time a more complete 
diversification of educational and occupational choice. 
3.2.2. With regard to training, the Commission could 
consider the setting of targets for participation rates, as 
described in point 2.4 especially in scientific and technical 
areas (e.g. computer systems analysis) and for management 
courses, in order to off-balance the trend for young women 
to seek mainly low or semi-skilled jobs which are 
vulnerable and increasingly exposed to cuts with the 
development of new technologies. Specific training courses 
of this sort might be envisaged exclusively for women. The 
roles of the European Social Fund and of the European 
Vocational Training Centre (Cedefop) are important in this 
connection, in terms of promoting new schemes and 
training techniques which would induce higher female 
participation in scientific, technological and managerial 
(!) For example in France, Law No 83.635 of July 1983, Article 
140.8 on discrimination as regards pay. 
28. 7. 86 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 189/33 
courses. The Committee further stresses, moreover, that 
improved training opportunities for women should not be 
promoted only prior to recruitment; female personnel 
employed in various undertakings should also be given the 
opportunity to catch up in training and managerial skills 
with their male counterparts so as to help establish a more 
equal base for pay, promotion and general career 
prospects. 
3.2.3. Education, qualifications and training levels are 
clearly essential components in helping to promote better 
opportunities on the labour market. They do not in 
themselves, however, guarantee that discrimination will 
not take place. Often young women job-seekers have to be 
more qualified or are expected to perform better than their 
male counterparts in competing for jobs and good careers. 
Noting the current limitations of national statistical 
coverage, the Committee urgently calls upon the Commis­
sion, with proper help from the Member States, to establish 
the facts, on the basis of full and reliable data, as to the 
discrepancies between male and female qualifications and 
training levels and access to jobs and career advancement. 
It further urges the involvement of independent Commis­
sions in the Member States in order to monitor and help 
correct evident imbalances arising. 
3.3. Action C — employment 
3.3.1. The Committee once again registers its extreme 
concern as to the disproportionately high level of female 
unemployment in the Community (1). The Committee 
notes that the problem is partly one of getting women 
properly inserted in the labour market and of reducing 
discrimination in terms of recruitment, further training, 
careers, dismissals, etc. It recognizes that between 1974 and 
1984 (the last year for which data are available) the number 
of women in employment throughout the Community 
actually increased by 3 million, mainly in the service sector, 
and being matched by major cuts in other sectors such as 
manufacturing and agriculture where a similar decrease in 
men's employment was recorded. At the same time, the 
female working population in the Community increased by 
6,9 million, or 17,5 %. The net result is that, despite the 
increase in the number of women working, their active 
female participation rate is still much lower than for men, 
and the level of female unemployment is increasing more 
rapidly. Women only account for 37 % of the total amount 
of people employed throughout the Community (compared 
to 43 % in the USA); their participation rate in (OECD) 
Europe is about 50 % (compared to 62 % in the USA), 
whereas the male participation rate is over 80 % ; female 
unemployment throughout the Community was registered 
(*) See ESC opinion on unemployed women, OJ No C 206, 
6.8. 1984. in December 1985 at a rate of 12,1 %, compared to 11,7 % 
in December 1984, whereas unemployment among men 
slightly declined by 0,1 % in the same year, from 10,5 to 
10,4%. In other words, at a time when the working 
population as a whole in the Community is under 
considerable unemployment pressure, and when there is a 
need for an overall employment creation policy, the gap 
between unemployed men and unemployed women is 
widening. This is why positive action for women is needed. 
3.3.2. Such positive action, in the context of worsening 
female unemployment, needs to be activated in an integral 
rather than unilateral way. An overall data-based assess­
ment of women's position on the labour market, linked to a 
carefully indiscriminate jobs creation policy which would 
objectively incite better female activity rates, ought to be 
seriously attempted, as the Commission rightly ap­
preciates, before having ultimately to resort to any rigid 
imposition of female training and job placements. 
3.3.3. This is why, as already indicated in point 3.2.3, 
the Committee calls for a more concerted attempt to set up 
and link up existing, officially recognized, independent 
national Commissions (preferably including the social 
partners) in order to monitor, on the basis of adequate 
statistical data, and to report on labour market imbalances 
in Europe caused by discriminatory practices and trends. In 
turn, discriminatory practices ought either to be self-
corrected or, if necessary, taken to law, aided by moves 
towards the reversal of the burden of proof (as indicated in 
point 3.1.2). Discriminatory trends, whilst having to be 
combated by a sustained popular campaign to increase 
awareness and change entrenched attitudes towards 
women at work (see point 3.7), should also need to be 
tackled by a variety of joint actions such as: 
— the official promotion, Europe-wide, of a practicable set 
of guidelines for good employment practice, as 
proposed by the Commission, inciting employers to 
develop their own codes of practice, and possibly 
backed up by official support measures such as 
awarding Community and other public tenders pre­
ferentially to those firms which, whilst first being 
competitive, also demonstrate an active interest in 
applying equal opportunities, 
No C 189/34 Official Journal of the European Communities 28. 7. 86 
— official incentives, such as low-interest loans and tax 
allowances, for the setting up of new small businesses, 
cooperatives and similar undertakings which, whilst not 
categorizing women as an assisted or subsidized group 
apart, take objective account of women's opportunities 
in their general personnel outfitting, 
— a more sophisticated approach both by public and 
private undertakings (with the former setting an 
example) to new working arrangements which are 
helpful to women, as well as to men, in current 
circumstances (e.g. reduction of working time, part-
time work and outwork conditional on the safequard of 
the employee's social and safety rights) and which cater 
without discrimination for forced interruptions to one's 
working life (e.g. parental leave and leave for family 
reasons). 
Women suffering from a handicap find it considerably 
more difficult to find a job as men suffering from the same 
handicap, who are themselves at a serious disadvantage 
from the point of view of the right to work. Allowance 
should be made for this double inequality (the disabled in 
relation to the able-bodied and disabled women in relation 
to disabled men) and efforts made to rectify it either within 
the framework of employment schemes in general or, if 
necessary, within the framework of specific activities 
(example: sheltered workshops). 
3.3.4. A concerted equal employment effort as described 
above would clearly depend on cooperation at all levels by 
the social partners, doubts and risks on both sides having to 
be overcome. In this connection, the Committee would 
urge the Commission to substantiate further its statement 
that the objective of equal employment opportunities 'may 
be achieved without imposing any unreasonable burden on 
industry'. Could there not be more stress, for instance, on 
the cost-effectiveness, in terms of maximizing previous 
training investment, of re-inserting women in the labour 
market after motherhood ? Could the Commission not have 
explained a little more the positive business results of its 
efforts to promote equal opportunity in the banking sector ? 
Likewise, the Committee considers that the Commission 
ought to allay doubts and look into how to remove risks of 
equal treatment provisions possibly leading to a perverted 
downgrading of women's working conditions. The 
Commission, for example, might carefully consider the 
work and tentative findings of the European Foundation 
for the improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 
which would indicate that in current conditions greater 
female access to shiftwork and nightwork could have 
possible negative implications for women, in terms of 
fatigue, family relations, over-work, exploitation and safety. Positive action must also address itself to these 
problems and factors, where there is a patent need for more 
research, based on practical experiences, and more political 
concern. 
3.4. Action D — new technologies 
3.4.1. As the Committee has previously stated: 'New 
technologies are neither positive nor negative. It is the way 
in which they are used by people that gives them positive or 
negative aspects'. This and related points, for instance as 
regards proper information on and participation in 
technological transition apply to the workforce and society 
in general. 
3.4.2. With specific regard to women, the Committee 
welcomes the Commission's proposal that Member States 
should produce a detailed statistical employment evalu­
ation of female involvement in the new technologies. It also 
shares the Commission's concern about collective agree­
ments relating to new working methods and women's 
employment. In this and in related problem areas the 
Committee urges preventive rather than curative actions. 
The Committee therefore stresses the need for accelerated 
scientific research on the health effects of new technologies 
both for the workforce as a whole and (in the context of this 
opinion) as regards sectors of high female activity, where 
for instance studies of VDU work should serve as a basis. 
The Committee repeats its call for the Commission to work 
in close cooperation with the European Foundation for the 
improvement of Living and Working Conditions on this 
matter, drawing on work undertaken for example on visual 
acuity and VDU work, the impact of technogical develop­
ment on supermarket check-out staff, stress in postal 
sorting offices, the impact of 'teletravaiP, etc. 
3.5. Action E — social protection and social security 
3.5.1. The Committee welcomes the Commission's 
intention to complete its task on the progressive in­
dividualization of social security rights. 
3.5.2. In the light of the Single Act on completing the 
Internal Market, the Committee considers that the draft 
Directive on occupational social security schemes can, in a 
social policy sense, be seen as going in the same direction, 
and would help reduce distortion of internal competition 
caused by differently costed occupational schemes for men 
and women in the Member States. Should not the draft 
proposal, therefore, be adopted on the basis of a majority 
vote? 
28. 7. 86 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 189/35 
3.5.3. The Committee stresses the need for proper social 
protection cover for part-time workers, outworkers and 
those employed in new working schemes. 
3.6. Action F — sharing of family and occupational 
responsibilities 
3.6.1. The Committee fully supports the various 
Commission proposals for the sharing of responsibilities 
and for reconciling family duties and work. New adaptable 
working methods, facilitated by the transition to new 
technologies, ought to be handled in a socially sophisti­
cated way conducive to maximizing such dual family/work 
responsibilities. Moreover, improved child-care and day­
care facilities and other similar forms of assistance 
proposed by the Commission would help generate new 
employment openings. 
3.6.2. As in point 3.5.2, the draft Directive on parental 
leave and leave for family reasons can be seen as going in 
the same direction, in a social policy sense, as the Single Act 
on the Internal Market, helping to align differently-costed 
and varying practices concerning occupational interrup­
tions in the Member States. 3.7. Action G 
attitudes increasing awareness — changing 
3.7.1. The Committee attaches particular importance to 
this aspect of the campaign for equal opportunities, and to 
the crucial role of the media in helping to form a new 
awareness. 
3.7.2. The Committee takes the opportunity to applaud 
the work done by the Commission and also by the Council 
of Europe in this respect, notably its report on women in 
positions of responsibility. 
3.7.3. Increasing popular awareness and changing 
entrenched attitudes, nonetheless, takes time and depends 
to a considerable degree on a sense of civic awareness and 
social solidarity. In this connection the role and cooper­
ation of the social partners is central; and the Committee 
therefore calls upon all groups and socio-professional 
organizations represented in its midst to give their full 
support to the large-scale, Community-wide, information 
campaign envisaged by the Commission. In this same 
context and as indicated earlier, (point 3.1.1), the 
Committee specifically urges the setting-up of joint worker-
management consultative committees in order to initiate 
and regularly monitor positive action plans. The Commit­
tee considers that an own-initiative opinion ought to be 
undertaken in order to draw up ideas on how to help 
promovate a new awareness and positive actions in favour 
of equal opportunities for women. 
Done at Brussels on 24 April 1986. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Gerd MUHR 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/99/EEC on health 
problems affecting intra-Community trade in meat products (J) 
(86/C 189/13) 
On 6 January 1986 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under 
Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, on the abovementioned 
proposal. 
The Section for Agriculture, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the 
subject, adopted its opinion on 3 April 1986, in the light of the oral report by Mr Wick. 
At its 236th plenary session (meeting of 24 April 1986), the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted the following opinion with no dissenting votes but with seven abstentions. 
0) OJ No C 349, 31. 12. 1985, p. 43.