In July 2001, the German government and employers' associations signed an agreement on equal opportunities in the private sector, in which the latter declared their intention to develop and implement their own measures to promote equal opportunities and "family-friendly" employment conditions. The conclusion of the agreement means that a binding law on equal opportunities, which had formed part of the current "red-green" government's coalition pact, has been put on hold. While the federal minister responsible for women's affairs expressed satisfaction with the agreement, it was criticised by the Green Party - the junior coalition partner - trade unions and women's organisations. They argue that business and industry have had enough time to develop measures on equal opportunities but have not done so, thus requiring binding legal regulations and not declarations of intent.
In top-level talks on 2 July 2001 between the government and employers' organisations, the parties reached an agreement on the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men in the private sector. Those taking part in the talks were: the Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder; the Federal Minister for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Christine Bergmann; the Federal Minister for Economics and Technology, Werner Müller; the president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (Bundesverinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA) Dieter Hundt; the president of the Confederation of German Industries (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Industrie, BDI); Michael Rogowski, the president of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag, DIHT), Ludwig Georg Braun; and the president of the Central Chamber of Crafts (Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks, ZDH) Dieter Philipp. The effect of this agreement it to put the recently proposed new law on equal opportunities (DE0009282F) to one side, at least for the current legislative period.
Content of the agreement
The agreement consists of five paragraphs. The first paragraph refers to the status quo concerning the situation of women on the labour market. Although women are highly qualified, and many of them more so than their male contemporaries, their performance and qualification potential is not reflected adequately in employment. At the same time, the demand for qualified workers is further increasing. At 56.9%, the female employment rate is below the rate for men (72.4%). Although the share of women in managerial positions has risen in recent years, it is still very low in comparison with the average of other European Union countries.
Paragraph two states that companies need to use the potential of highly qualified and motivated women in order to keep up with international competition. According to the agreement, companies already apply internal schemes to promote equal opportunities and to improve the opportunities for women and their professional careers, adjusted to the needs of the company. Although progress has been made in recent years, further efforts to improve equal opportunities and "family-friendly" conditions in education, training, occupation and society are necessary. These considerations form the basis for the key points of the agreement between the government and employers' associations, which are laid down in paragraph three.
Employers' associations state that they intend to pursue active internal promotional measures concerning vocational training, professional opportunities for women and the reconciliation of family and work for mothers and fathers. This should increase the employment rate of women, especially in areas where women have been underrepresented so far - eg managerial positions and "future-oriented" professions. These measures should contribute to a reduction in income differentials between men and women. In addition, the government and employers' associations agree that these internal measures need to be accompanied by an expansion of the overall childcare system and an all-day schooling system. Employers' associations promise to recommend to their members a series of internal measures to improve equal opportunities for men and women, as well as family-friendly employment conditions. Companies should thus:
- lay down the goal of equal opportunities and family-friendly conditions in their company philosophy, make them known and consider the different effects of business decisions on employees;
- make equal opportunities and the reconciliation of work and family life a principal task for employees in management positions;
- increase the share of women in management positions through the inclusion of a higher number of women in relevant training programmes and through offering part-time work in such positions;
- provide incentives to attract more women to "future-oriented" education and training;
- improve the reconciliation of work and family life for mothers and fathers through flexible working time, flexi-time, working-time accounts, sabbaticals, teleworking, job-sharing and support for childcare;
- allow flexible arrangements during parental leave;
- establish binding objectives for achieving equal opportunities and family-friendly conditions; and
- include employees in the conception and realisation of these measures.
Further, employers' associations promise to inform, advise and support their members in the implementation of these measures, presenting them with examples of best practice. They also recommend that companies support the Total E-Quality federation - a trade and industry initiative which promotes an equal opportunities policy and measures for its implementation, which dates back to a conference of the European Commission's "Positive Action" network held in May 1994 in Como (Italy) - and the "Work and Family Audit" scheme (Audit Beruf & Familie).
According to the fourth paragraph of the agreement, the implementation of the accord will be monitored by a body of experts from the government and the employers' associations, known as "Equal opportunities and family-friendly conditions in the economy" (Chancengleichheit und Familienfreundlichkeit in der Wirtschaft). This group will be supported by the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, IAB) - the research institution of the Federal Employment Service (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit). Initially, the new group will take stock of the issue. Beginning at the end of 2003 and then every two years, the group will assess the implementation of the agreement and the progress achieved. On this basis, it will develop further concrete proposals to improve the measures on equal opportunities.
In the fifth paragraph, the government promises that it will not take an initiative for a new law on equal opportunities in the private sector as long as the agreement is successfully implemented by the companies. This pledge does not affect the implementation of binding EU legal provisions.
From the draft bill to the agreement
In September 2000, a draft bill on equal opportunities between men and women in the private sector was presented by Ms Bergmann, the Federal Minister for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (DE0009282F). After employers' associations signalled that they rejected the idea of a new law on equal opportunities, arguing that the freedom for entrepreneurial action is already restricted by various other laws (eg the law on part-time work), lively debates on this topic were held among the social partners, academic experts and politicians.
In June 2001, after Chancellor Schröder had made clear that he was no longer interested in a law on equal opportunities, the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei, SPD) - the senior party in the coalition government - pursued a new political strategy of asking representatives from business and industry to draw up a binding "self-obligation" on equal opportunities by the end of the parliamentary summer break in August. This self-obligation was to contain the following points:
- an analysis of the current situation of equal opportunities between men and women within companies, to be repeated after three years in order to provide evidence on the progress made; and
- the development of concepts for equal opportunities within companies and of active measures for promoting them.
Only if the employers' associations had refused this proposal, would legal regulations have been introduced. While the peak business and employers' organisations, BDI and BDA, stated that they not only rejected a law on equal opportunities but also any possible self-obligation, the president of ZDH, M. Braun, reacted positively to the concept of self-obligation. As the final agreement of 2 July 2001 indicates, this seemed to be a minority position.
Reactions
In a press release, Ms Bergmann welcomed the agreement. She stated that the fact that the employers had committed themselves to pursuing an active equal opportunities policy could be seen as a breakthrough for equal opportunities in the private sector, bringing to an end a long and conflictual negotiation process. In her view, the agreement represents a modern concept for the promotion of equal opportunities in the private sector, which relies on the initiative of business and industry.
The SPD's coalition partner, Alliance 90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), emphasised that it intends to keep the goal of an effective law on equal opportunities in sight. In a press release, the party's leader, Kerstin Müller, and spokesperson on women's affairs, Irmgard Schewe-Gerigk, stated that the agreement was not sufficient. They claimed that only 200 of about 3 million companies have developed policies on equal opportunities so far, and that binding legal regulations instead of declarations of intent are thus necessary.
The German Federation of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB), which had promoted a new law on equal opportunities and proposed further amendments to the original draft, criticised the agreement. In a press release, the DGB vice-president, Ursula Engelen-Kefer, argued that the peak employers' associations and their member organisations had already had enough time to ask private sector companies to develop measures on equal opportunities and promote their implementation, but his had happened in only a few cases in recent years. According to Ms Engelen-Kefer, the agreement made a mockery of the whole idea of binding regulations on equal opportunities and showed at the same time the necessity for legal regulation. She further criticised the fact that the body of experts which is to monitor the implementation of the agreement consists only of representatives from government and employers, and that unions are not included.
In the run-up to the agreement and decision not to proceed with legislation, the German Women's Council (Deutscher Frauenrat) - an organisation grouping 53 women's federations and networks and about 11 million individual members, which aims to bring women's interests into politics - organised a mailing campaign in which the government was asked to pass a law on equal opportunities. The organisation argued that such a law on equal opportunities had been a decisive part of the October 1998 coalition agreement of the current red-green government. In this document, both parties agreed to launch a "women and career" campaign, which was to include "an effective equal opportunities law" and that they "shall introduce binding regulations on the promotion of women which will also have to be applied by private industry". According to the coalition pact, this law was to be presented within the current legislative period.
Commentary
It has to be borne in mind that - like the new agreement - the planned law on equal opportunities would also have allowed companies to develop their own measures, as the draft bill on equal opportunities would have consisted of two stages. The first stage would have given company management and employee representatives the opportunity to reach agreements tailored to their own requirements. Only if they had not been able, or prepared, to reach their own agreements would they have been obliged to adopt the minimum standards laid down by the law. These minimum standards included, for example, an increase in the proportion of women's employment in sectors where they are underrepresented, introduction of the gender mainstreaming principle and improved reconciliation of work and family life. The observance of these standards by companies would have to be taken into consideration in awarding public contracts.
A law would have made it possible to institute proceedings against companies not fulfilling the legal requirements. This is not possible on the basis of the agreement between the government and employers' associations. It is arguably difficult to understand why companies should now start to promote equal opportunities: the basis that they "need the potential of high qualified and motivated women in order to stand the international competition" is not really convincing, considering the fact that although women are in many cases already better qualified than men, only 11% of all managerial positions in Germany are held by women, while in the USA the share is 46% and in Canada 42%.
Employers' associations, which made clear that they wanted neither a self-obligation nor a law, also refused to give any exact figures for the commitments laid down in the agreement. Therefore it will be difficult for the monitoring group to do its work properly, especially if there is no provision to impose sanctions on those companies not fulfilling the promises.
Finally, the whole procedure is arguably very doubtful in terms of the way in which the negotiations were conducted. If the draft equal opportunities bill is not to be discussed in parliament or within its relevant committees, one would have at least expected a debate within the tripartite national Alliance for Jobs (DE9812286N), instead of talks between only opponents of a law and half-hearted advocates. (Alexandra Scheele, Institute for Economic and Social Research, WSI)