CTU MEDIA RELEASE
08 March 2007

Quality Work For Women Needed

“International Working Women’s Day is an opportunity to undertake a stocktake on the position of women in the paid workforce and our assessment is that while progress is being made, much more is needed to ensure working women achieve quality working lives,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said on International Working Women’s Day today.

“If we are serious about need for high levels of women’s participation in the paid workforce, we must continue to make progress on a number of key issues,” she said.

“Whether it is through better pay and conditions of employment, particularly for the low paid, challenging discrimination at work, dealing with workload and work-life balance issues, or closing the gender pay gap, unions are today highlighting our work in seeking quality work for women workers. Women joining together in unions continues to be the best way to make progress.”

“Women in unions are part of an international movement of women. Today the international trade union movement is launching a campaign for maternity protection for all workers, a global issue linked to the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon in 2000.”

“Here in New Zealand, maternity protections form an important part of achieving quality work for women,” Ms Beaumont said. “We are stressing the need for breast feeding mums to feel confident that workplaces have policies in place and a culture that supports them and their babies in the workplace.”

“The CTU supports a legislative right to breastfeeding breaks and appropriate facilities for new mothers upon returning to work, and we are pursuing ratification of ILO Convention 183 (maternity protections) and seeking further improvements in access to paid parental leave.”

ENDS

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