The Joint Committee on Equal Opportunities is the instrument put in place to formulate and monitor positive-action projects aimed at ensuring the removal of all obstacles preventing the achievement of equal opportunities for men and women at work.
In this sense, using the tools provided by Italian Legislative Decree 198/2006, the Committee is also active in following up on the progress of the projects themselves both during the funding phase under the aforementioned law and in their implementation.
The Joint Committee on Equal Opportunities is composed of 12 members, 6 of whom shall represent the employers’ Associations and 6 the workers’ trade union federations, who shall be designated by the respective parties referred to above within 30 (thirty) days of the signing of the CCNL.
An alternate may be appointed for each representative.
The operational headquarters of the Equal Opportunities Working Group will be at the head office of the National Bilateral Sectoral Body.
For all matters related to the operation of the Committee, the Committee itself may make its own resolutions.
Usually in the second quarter of each year, the members of the Committee will also report to the stipulating parties in a specific meeting on the results of their work, and in any case three months before the end of the contractual term they will submit a final report to such parties.
The Committee is assigned the following tasks:
- study the qualitative and quantitative evolution of women’s employment in the sector, using data disaggregated by gender, occupational classification level and type of employment relationship, including those processed by the Labour Market Observatory;
- follow the evolution of Italian, European and international laws on equal opportunities at work;
- promote appropriate measures to facilitate the reintegration into the labour market of women or men who wish to return to work after an interruption, including by promoting the use of the training/retraining contract;
- identify initiatives for refresher and vocational training, also in order to safeguard the professional skills of those who return to work following periods of abstention, leave and leave of absence, as envisaged by Italian Law no. 53 of 8 March 2000;
- set up Positive Action projects aimed at fostering women’s employment and professional growth, also using the opportunities offered by Italian Legislative Decree 198/2006 and the relevant EU funds;
- promote effective initiatives to prevent bullying and harassment in the labour relations system;
- analyse the quantitative and qualitative data received from the joint bodies concerning the procedures and solutions identified in relation to sexual harassment;
- collect and analyse the initiatives and results achieved in the field of positive action bypromoting initiatives linked to the agreements referred to in Article 9 of Italian Law no. 53 of 8 March 2000 and disseminating good practices;
- identify initiatives aimed at overcoming all forms of discrimination in the workplace, particularly with regard to pay and access to vocational training.
Any participation by companies in the vocational training projects agreed to and implemented by the Organisations stipulating the National Contract, which the parties shall promote, entitles them to apply for the benefits envisaged by the relevant provisions of law.
The Committee may use the data provided by the National Observatory to perform its tasks.
The Committee normally meets quarterly or at the request of one of the parties, chaired in turn by a member of both groups, and acts unanimously for the implementation of the above tasks. Each year it will submit a report complete with collected and elaborated materials. Here it will present its activities to the contracting organisations, discussing both proposals for which the Committee has achieved a unanimous opinion as well as the assessments that constitute the positions of one of the components.