Trade union UNIA has published a history of women in watchmaking. In the slipstream women working in watchmaking met to demand real progress in terms of equal pay. They adopted a resolution demanding detailed audits of women’s and men’s wages in the engineering and metal working sectors, calling upon the industry to participate in the dialogue on pay equity, an instrument which aims to close the pay gap. The women are demanding access to information on pay systems, classification and promotion in order to allow corrective measures to be taken. They are also demanding training and retraining. In order to raise women’s low wages, they are in favour of introducing a minimum wage in the industry.
English: http://www.industriall-union.org/women-in-swiss-watch-making
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.