Las mujeres y el futuro del trabajo en el centenario de la OIT

Resum

This paper analysis of several documents launched by the ILO in the context of its centenary celebrations, whose contents postulate, among other aspects, certain legal innovations in relation to the future of women’s work. In the first place, it is necessary to highlight the contents included in the promoted by ILO initiative entitled The women at work, one of the seven that have been launched since 2014. Through it, the ILO wanted to make an assessment of the situation of women in the world of work in the years preceding 2019 –centennial year–, and formulate proposals for a boost in favor of equality. Since then, efforts have been made to seek the views of tripartite constituents and ILO experts, as well as authorized voices in this area. The process has concluded with the proposals on this issue made by the World Commission, responsible for preparing the Report on the future of work, proposals that are the subject of critical interest in this contribution. Care work continues to be generally outside «productive work». They are often subject to low valuation and low retribution or move within the informal economy, forming part of undeclared work. This combination of elements represents a powerful factor of economic and social segregation and poverty of women. Another central element of this contribution is the analysis of certain factors that continue to produce segregation in the labor market due to gender and hinder effective equality between women and men. Inequalities continue to be present in at least three phases of women’s contact with the world of work: in access to employment, in the work relationship and in the specific field of professional promotion. The actions to be undertaken to combat inequality must be addressed fundamentally in relation to four specific areas: reconciliation of work and private life, effectively addressing wage discrimination, guaranteeing the promotion of women to positions of leadership and special responsibility and ending violence and harassment of women in the world of work. The methodology used in the preparation of this article is based on the exhaustive analysis of a series of documents offered by the ILO throughout 2018 and the beginning of 2019 in which proposals for legal innovation on the work done by women have been suggested. The analysis of these documents shows that, if such proposals were actually carried out, this would imply the need to introduce changes and innovations in the international labor legislation and, eventually, in the internal legislation of the member countries of the ILO, including Spain. Such changes would fundamentally affect the following issues: 1. The rules applicable to the work and family life balance. In this sense, the ILO advocates new advances to incorporate men to domestic and family care work, expanding paternity leave and giving greater sovereignty to workers in the use and management of their times. The latter issue would imply a greater use about the times of effective work and a clear separation with the indispensable times for the development of private life. Such measures will result in benefit to gender equality by allowing women more autonomy and personal independence. 2. The rules applicable to the remuneration of men and women. Far from having achieved the objective of equal remuneration for work of equal value between men and women, the remuneration disparity persists. It is currently estimated worldwide at 20% less for women. The ILO proposes introducing greater transparency in the composition of the salary and verifying the deviations that occur in strongly «masculinized» or excessively «feminized» jobs. This would make it possible to verify the extension of social stereotypes linked to gender on wages. The rules applicable to the professional promotion of women. It is necessary to analyze why women continue to have so much difficulty in accessing positions of power and special responsibility. In this area, it has been detected that motherhood and family responsibilities continue to act as barriers to the promotion and professional advancement of women. 4. The norms applicable to violence and harassment of women in the workplace. In this specific area of the most abrupt inequality, the ILO is advancing the corresponding work in order to be able to adopt in 2019 a new international Convention that for the first time introduces an international labor legislation that sanctions and punishes these behaviors at work. The final part of this document deals with the exhaustive examination of the most recent ILO document, launched by the World Commission designated to prepare the report on the future of work on the occasion of the first centenary of the ILO. The report contains, on the one hand, specific measures for equality based on gender, which are presented as an «agenda» transforming current reality; on the other, it contains general and transversal measures that will also have an impact on progress in terms of equality between men and women. The specific measures insist on improving the conditions and the legal regime of work and family life balance, overcoming social stereotypes that relegate women to family responsibilities. More public services to facilitate work and family life balance, as well as an assessment of care work could have a positive impact on more equality for women. The specific measures contemplate the need to overcome the gender wage gap, highlighting the duty to introduce a certain degree of transparency and knowledge of the elements that make up the salary to overcome the components that may be discriminatory (directly or indirectly). Among the general measures, it is worth highlighting the implementation of the «universal labor guarantee» which guarantees a minimum of social protection for all workers, regardless of the type of employment they have. This measure can mainly benefit women who participate in precarious work or involuntary part-time work. Likewise, they will benefit from the promotion of fundamental rights at work that the report proposes to carry out, as well as the guarantee of adequate safety and health conditions at work, especially because of the maternity. Finally, the report invokes the need to ensure workers more sovereignty and control over their private and working life. Any action taken on this issue will directly affect the work of women, trapped in double-day situations and double presence as a result of their work and family responsibilities.