Celebrating International Women’s Day in the workplace

Author: Andrej Poruban (Alexander Dubček University of Trenčín, Slovakia)

Let me briefly look back at 8 March. Every year we mark the anniversary of the International Women’s Day (IWD). This tribute aims at the advancement of women around the globe. Challenging inequity is fundamental value for the European Union too. Within this principle Article 157 § 4 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union authorises affirmative action to empower women: „With a view to ensuring full equality in practice between men and women in working life, the principle of equal treatment shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting measures providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for the underrepresented sex to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in professional careers.“

IWD provides a perfect opportunity for employers to start flirt with the idea of such positive discrimation. Even though it may sounds like a good plan, employment lawyers should start to pay attention at this very moment. For instance agreement signed with trade unions grants a half-day of leave to female employees on 8 March and it's not hard to imagine that male colleagues may find it as an unjustified different treatment. Anyway, the French Court of Cassation already uphold this exclusive benefit. In judgment of 12 July 2017, case number: 15-26262, the highest national court states that this measure aims to establish equal opportunities between men and women by remedying de facto inequalities affecting women’s opportunities. That's fine but one could wonder at how granting a symbolic half-day of leave on IWD could contribute to improving equal opportunities between the genders? For more questions & answers check out the interesting piece about it (Claire Toumieux - 2017/31 Lawful positive discrimination in favour of women (FR) - EELA Members | EELC Subscribers).

Finally and above all, there is some debate about the true origin but don't forget that IWD is with absolute certainty link to the labour law from the early 20th century.