Yes! More Women in Transport: Identifying priorities for ETF Women’s Committee future Work Programme

9 Nov 2021

Yes! More Women in Transport: Over 100 trade unionists and workers from 24 countries and 42 trade unions came together for a two-day conference from 20 – 21 October to identify future priorities for the ETF Women’s Committee Work Programme which will be adopted at ETF’s Congress in May 2022.

The ETF Women’s Committee took the opportunity present themselves and their past work on our five priorities to a wider public:

  1. Saying ‘NO’ to violence against women transport workers in Europe
  2. Making the transport sector fit for women to work in:  “Yes! More Women in Transport”
  3. Ensuring the principle of “equal pay for work of equal value” for women transport workers
  4. Addressing the impacts of digitalisation and automation on women’s employment
  5. Training and empowerment

Through discussions on our past work, testimonials, panel discussions and interactive sessions, three possible priorities for our future work emerged:

  • ETF Campaign: “Yes! More women in transport” – Making the transport sector fit for women to work in”
  • The impact of digitalisation & and automation on women in transport
  • Fighting violence against women workers

One central concept shone through during discussions: empowerment – which was seen as a key for any success whether it be through training, support, equal and active presence in decision-making bodies or any other form.

Another concept that made the unanimity of all those present was gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming is the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making (EIGE). No surprise then that to achieve gender mainstreaming, transport policies require a gender perspective.

And on this, there is still much work to be done as was confirmed during a panel discussion between ETF Women’s Committee Chair, Sara Tripodi, MEP Vera Tax, DG Move’s Elisabeth Kotthaus and EEB’s Katharina Wiese

The ETF Women’s Committee looks forward to revealing their final work programme in May 2022.

You can find the presentations that were shared during the conference here as well as one of the testimonials that was shared by our German union, EVG.