2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for all

UNISON Labour Link Magazine, February 2007

UNISON is the trade union which has been at the forefront of equal opportunities for many years - now UNISON Labour MEPs are at the forefront of ensuring that the 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities means something concrete for UNISON members.

If there is a set of issues of which UNISON Labour MEPs feel most strongly then it is on the improvement of the rights of and protection against discrimination of older people, people with disabilities, and people who suffer discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or their sexual orientation wherever they live in the European Union.

2007 has been designated the EU Year of Equal Opportunities and it gives Labour MEPs a chance to reinforce protections already legislated for at EU level and a crucial opportunity to improve protections particularly in areas such as disability rights.

So what has actually happened at EU level and how does this affect working people in the UK?

Over the past 30 years a considerable body of European law has been put in place to tackle sex discrimination in pay, working conditions and social security - making promoting equality between men and women a key priority for the EU.

Since 1997 with the adoption of Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, this has been extended to the other forms of discrimination.

This year - 2007 - will be the deadline for all member countries of the EU to implement the disability and age provisions of the Employment Directive which calls on all EU countries to implement protection at work on these grounds and on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. Article 13 has already put in place a Race Equality Directive.

On the ground in the UK, the Article 13 directives have already been implemented in the form of the recent Age Discrimination laws in the UK and in improvements to the existing Race Relations Act. The fact that the UK has one of the highest EU rates of workers who want to or have to work after 65 shows the real relevance to working people here.

Labour MEPs currently lead the three  all party groups in the European Parliament on Age, Disability and Sexual Orientation and have been heavily involved in the Article 13 Directives.

We all believe that the when it comes to anti-discrimination laws - the 2007 Year should be used to push the boundaries - for example fresh legislation on disability rights covering access to goods and services as well as protection for people with disabilities in employment.

Also crucial is the understanding that laws combating discrimination are often poorly implemented by EU countries (Germany and Greece have yet to implement the Race Equality directive for example and major countries such as France have poor quality race legislation in place) - and often the legislation is not accessible to the public.

It is here that Labour MEPs believe that working with UNISON and the wider movement to promote the proper implementation of existing laws will be a critical task in 2007.

The challenge is a major one - large scale surveys by the International Labour Organisation and Eurobarometer consistently show a major gap between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people; that women who have benefited from 30 years of legal protection continue to be paid on average 15% less than men for comparable work. While Europe is rapidly ageing - age discrimination across the EU sees older workers with an employment rate 40% compared to an EU average of 60%.

Last month the European Parliament saw the creation of a first time far-right European political group at a time when visible ethnic minorities are badly underrepresented in decision bodies across the EU.

For all of these reasons and more UNISON Labour MEPs are determined to make the 2007 Year of Equal Opportunities a vehicle for practical change.

UNISON member Claude Moraes is Labour MEP for London and Labour Spokesperson on Employment and Social Affairs.