Women's Views on News |
- Apprenticeships: discrimination here too
- Showder joins the No TIPP campaign trail
- Refugee crisis: we must not lose our humanity
| Apprenticeships: discrimination here too Posted: 23 Sep 2015 05:37 AM PDT
The gender pay gap first appears in apprenticeships, according to new research from the Young Women's Trust. Research which also reveals that as well as being paid less, female apprentices are less likely to receive training and less likely to end up with a job. A poll by ComRes, commissioned by the Young Women's Trust to launch its new apprenticeships campaign, showed that on average young men are earning 21 per cent more than young women while doing an apprenticeship. According to the poll, female apprentices earn just £4.82 an hour compared with £5.85 an hour for male apprentices. That means a young woman working 35 hours a week will be £2,000 worse off over the course of a year. A fundamental aspect of apprenticeships is the combination of training at work, training outside of work and practical work experience. But again young women are losing out. Young women undertaking apprenticeships are almost twice as likely to report that they missed out on training. Some 7 per cent said they received no training at work – compared to 4 per cent of young men – and 23 per cent received no training outside of work – compared to 12 per cent of young men. Without training, apprenticeships become a simply a source of cheap labour for employers and offer little benefit to the employee. Apprenticeships are valued because they are seen as a route to employment. But here too, young women are disadvantaged. After completing their apprenticeship, some 16 per cent of women were out of work, compared to 6 per cent of men. Remarking on this, Dr Carole Easton, the chief executive of Young Women's Trust, said: "Apprenticeships often provide young people with a valuable insight into the realities of the workplace and it is incredibly sad that that one of these realities is that many women will be worse off than their male counterparts. "The gender pay gap isn't something that opens up later, or exists only in the boardroom." One of the reasons why young women are paid less to undertake apprenticeships is that the sectors they tend to work in – such as administration, health care and retail – are likely to be poorly paid. Less than 2 per cent of construction apprentices are female and less than 4 per cent of engineering apprentices. Even in IT & Telecoms the figure only rises to 12 per cent. A third of the women asked – 33 per cent – told ComRes that if there were a wider range of specialisms available, apprenticeships would be more attractive. The poll also showed that young men and young women have different priorities when considering apprenticeships. Young women tended to reference issues surrounding making the apprenticeship process itself more secure and convenient, being more likely than their male counterparts to mention higher pay for apprentices and flexibility of hours so that they can be combined with caring responsibilities. Young men on the other hand were more likely than young women to say that confidence that the apprenticeship would lead to highly paid jobs in the future was important. Easton said: "When looking at how we can get more young women into work we need to begin with apprenticeships and the part they play in unlocking the talents of young women and ensuring that they can contribute fully to the economy and to society." The Young Women's Trust will be campaigning to make a wider range of apprenticeships available to young women. If you are, or know someone, who is a woman aged 18-30 and would like to be involved in their new apprenticeship campaign please contact Young Women's Trust, they want to hear from you.  |
| Showder joins the No TIPP campaign trail Posted: 23 Sep 2015 05:34 AM PDT
War on Want has teamed up with handmade cosmetics producer Lush, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and with Lush stores in 14 European countries to say ‘No’ to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Often described simply as a "free trade deal", TTIP is anything but this. TTIP will give corporations unprecedented powers to toy with our most prized social, health and environmental protections just so they can make more money; it will destroy many of the hard-won gains made in Europe over the past decades around food safety or protection from dangerous chemicals in our cosmetics and pesticides; it will cost at least one million jobs and permit US corporations to sue European governments for millions of pounds in their own corporate court system. In short: TTIP will take power from people and place it in the hands of the world's biggest corporations. A dirty deal being negotiated, in secret, between the European Union and the USA. A vibrant people-power movement with one single clear target to stop the secretly negotiated EU-US trade deal has been building in Europe now for the past two years, and almost 3 million people around Europe, including nearly 500,000 in the UK, have signed a petition to say TTIP's secret negotiations must end now, no ifs and no buts. Thanks to this incredible surge of people power and the campaigning of activists and groups all over Europe, politicians are becoming increasingly divided on TTIP, and the new Labour leadership has joined the Green Party in fully opposing TTIP. And in this crucial year of TTIP campaigning, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood is backing the campaign with a designer box of shower powder (“showder”) – on sale at Lush – so you can “TTIP that dirty deal down the plughole“. Lush has a proud record of using natural ingredients, opposing animal testing and supporting civil society groups fighting for animal welfare, against climate change and for human rights. Vivienne Westwood's Climate Revolution is an "uprising" founded to specifically target climate change – and how it is undeniably intertwined with our dominant economic models. And War on Want fights the root causes of poverty and human rights violations, as part of the worldwide movement for global justice. TTIP will have massive implications for these areas. Profits from sales of the #NoTTIP "Dirty Deal Showder" will go to support War on Want and the – currently underfunded – European grassroots groups fighting against TTIP. Read more about the Lush campaign here, and follow the buzz on Twitter. And join us on October 10 when this campaign will be joining allies including Global Justice Now, Friends of the Earth (FOE) and 38 Degrees at a rally in London after a day of #NoTTIP campaign actions. Speakers at the event, which marks one year since the launch of the European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP, include the leader of the Green Party Natalie Bennett, and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP. And help stop TTIP and CETA – sign this petition.  |
| Refugee crisis: we must not lose our humanity Posted: 23 Sep 2015 03:21 AM PDT
The first of Syrian refugees allowed into the UK as part of the vulnerable persons resettlement (VPR) scheme arrived earlier this week. The scheme has been designed to give priority to those who are victims of sexual violence or torture or are too elderly or disabled to live in the camps. There was a brief if interesting debate about whether we should prioritise women and children who were refugees over men in the face of Europe's deepening migrant crisis. Professor Jennifer Saul from the University of Sheffield wrote in The New Statesman recently that to prioritise women and children refugees over men would be a mistake. Saul said that: "The 'women and children first' idea has deep roots in the idea that women are, like children, in special need of protection because they are unable to fend for themselves." And added: "…the idea that women and children are innocent and therefore exceptions is not only patronising to women, but appalling in its attitude toward men." At what age, Saul asked, would a now 10 year-old son count as 'no longer worth saving (16? 18? 21?)’; your partner, brother and father has already been deemed so, and is condemned to… what? And for us to succumb to a fear of the Muslim male is to deny men their humanity and their right to a life free from terrible persecution – and deny their families their support. Since her article was published it has become painfully apparent that the refugee crisis in Europe has worsened, less a matter for debating theory. Thousands upon thousands of people are making the arduous and dangerous journey to Europe in hope of a life without violence and tyranny. Many of these people are fleeing torture or death in countries ravaged by war and face murder and kidnapping en route. The news has been – is – flooded with horrific images – a dead toddler washed up on a Mediterranean beach, desperate parents trying to protect babies and children from being tear-gassed by riot police at Hungary's borders, or hoards of emaciated men and women carrying their worldly possessions, along with their children, on long dusty roads that seem to lead to nowhere. Tragic images that are not propaganda 'Kodak-moments' designed only to tug on our heartstrings. This is happening now, in Europe. The Guardian reported that according to the Red Cross around 13,000 refugees entered Austria in the space of one afternoon. In the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron – the man who recently, shockingly, described these people as a 'swarm of migrants' – has so far offered a woeful response to the refugee crisis. Earlier this month he produced a plan to take in 20,000 refugees – over five years. And no sign of any action, any sign that this is a crisis that needs to be dealt with now. As Simon Jenkins recently wrote in the Guardian: "British policy makes no sense economically, diplomatically or numerically. “The 2011 census showed net immigration into Britain of 182,000 a year. Some 70,000 came from eastern Europe alone. Most of these people merge into the economy without need of help from the government. Few are a drag. “To imply that more than 4,000 Syrian refugees is in some way "too much" is a statistical joke." Anti-racism activists also slammed the UK government's "shameful" and "inhumane" response to the refugee crisis at a mass rally in London earlier this week. The rally took place as Europe witnesses the biggest migration of refugees since 1945, with no proper action being taken on how to manage it. Stand Up to Racism organiser Sabby Dhalu said that the small number of refugees David Cameron is willing to accept was a "gross dereliction of duty." And she called on the British government and EU countries to accept more refugees, saying that the situation "would be easily manageable if these countries would adopt a more humanitarian approach." "The so-called refugee crisis is only a crisis because many EU countries – including Britain – are refusing to accept those in the EU." Shadow foreign minister Catherine West told crowds that the government's "inadequate response" to the escalating crisis was "shameful". "The government's inadequate response to the growing humanitarian crisis has been shameful," West said. "…We stand together tonight to call for much more to be done. "I do not want the world to see Britain turning its back on those in desperate need." And Unite Against Fascism's Weyman Bennett accused Prime Minister David Cameron of dehumanising refugees and refusing to fulfil any "basic tenets of humanity." "Refugees have drowned in their thousands. This winter they will freeze in thousands," he pointed out. "The Prime Minster David Cameron hands out lectures to the world about being decent, honourable and abiding by international law. Yet he refuses to fulfil any of basic tenets of humanity. "Describing refugees as a 'swarm' will only serve to dehumanise those in need of our help. "We cannot stand by while children and others die." Today's European leaders must tread very carefully and remember their sense of shared humanity when dealing with these desperate people – men, women and children. For this is not a migrant or refugee crisis. It is a failure of political imagination, and a lack of political leadership. And it is no longer only the older ones among us who can remember the stories in the news of the times when we have not helped.  |
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