The Government Group of the San Bartolomé City Council, formed by the PSOE, Centro Canario and the Partido Vecinal, voted against a motion presented by the Partido Popular in the last ordinary plenary session of March 22, claiming the non-salary discrimination of women in Spain on the occasion of the celebration of International Working Women's Day, which took place on March 8.
According to the political parties of the opposition, the motion raised to the plenary session stated, in its first section, a series of objective data on salary discrimination against women in the labor market and female employment and unemployment rates in our country, extracted from the Active Population Survey of the last quarter of 2009, according to which the employment rate of women in Spain is 53.27 percent, while that of men is 66.34 percent, far from the target of 60 percent female employment set by the European Union in the Lisbon Agenda for 2010.
The motion urged the central government to promote female employment, with the aim of reaching the employment rates established by the European Union in the Lisbon Agenda; to combat female salary discrimination; to guarantee the effective compliance with article 45 of the Law for the effective equality of women and men, which establishes that companies with more than 250 workers will have to draw up equality plans; and to establish policies for reconciling work and family life such as the promotion of part-time work, teleworking, flexible hours, etc.
The political parties of the opposition want to denounce the "double language of the parties of the Government group, especially the PSOE, who talk a lot about equality between men and women but who, really, when the moment of truth arrives, do not support the political resolutions of importance regarding equal treatment and opportunities in access to employment, training and professional promotion established by Organic Law 3/2007, of March 22, for the effective equality of women and men".
Likewise, the opposition parties remind the Government group that working for equality is not only "distributing ribbons in the streets every March 8".