Women

Women have increasingly become part of the paid workforce and of trade unions, and there have been important achievements in organising, collective bargaining, and rights. Yet they remain overrepresented in precarious, low-skilled, low-paid jobs with little prospects for career advancement. According to a 2009 ITUC study, the gender pay gap worldwide, estimated at 20%, has not narrowed over the last three years. The great majority of workers in the informal economy, in export processing zones or in domestic work are women who make up nearly 70% of the world’s poor and 65% of the world’s illiterate. (...)

The ITUC and its affiliated organisations work together to advance women’s rights and gender equality. The ITUC actively promotes equality at the workplace and the full integration of women in trade unions including in their decision making bodies. Ensuring that gender perspectives are mainstreamed in all policies, activities and programmes at all levels is one of the main tasks of the ITUC Equality Department under the political guidance of the ITUC Women’s Committee, made up of 33 female trade unionists from the five continents.