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EU POLICIES
EMBRACING QUALITY AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

‘Quality of companies/quality of work’ and ‘Equal Opportunities’ are prime themes in the European Union, in favour and support of competitiveness and equality in the entrepreneurial system.
We mention just a few of the many significant moments that mark paths and commitments in these contexts.

The European Union's commitment to support quality culture starts in the 1980s.
On the UNI Sistema Qualità Italia website (Italian National Unification agency) we read: ‘With a resolution dated 7 May 1985, known as the "New Approach" and "Global Approach to Certification and Trials" dated December 1989, the European Union intends to achieve two objectives:

• …….
• Increase quality levels in European businesses, spreading quality culture by the application of UNI EN ISO 9000 standards to render European businesses competitive on big international markets (USA, Japan, South East Asia)’.

In the same period the EU's commitment to Equal Opportunities got under way: in 1977 the Europe Social Fund included in its general policies, funding for women for professional training and employment. In the 1989 reform of Structural Funds, all Community interventions had to contain the clause that programmes put forward by Member States had to be compatible with the laws and policies of the Community as far as Equal Opportunities were concerned. With the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, the EU introduced equal opportunities between men and women as part of the tasks (art. 2) and the actions (art. 3) that the Community is obliged to undertake. New 2000-2006 Structural Funds envisage, as a transversal priority, Equal Opportunities that is the implementation of gender mainstreaming strategies as horizontal priorities in all plans, measures and actions to encourage a dual objective: the removal of gender discrimination and promotion of Equal Opportunities.

The last document we mention that highlights European commitment to these themes is the European Commission communication: ‘Employment and social policies: a framework for investing in quality’ (COM 2001 313) adopted in June 2001, listing the ten elements that are considered central for work quality and amongst which we find several of them that make direct or indirect reference to female employment. The ten elements are:

• intrinsic quality of work
• skills, lifelong learning and career development
• gender equality
• health and safety at work
• flexibility and security
• inclusion in and access to the labour market
• work organization and work-life balance
• social dialogue and worker involvement
• diversity and non discrimination
• overall work performance

Of these 10 factors no less than three are dedicated to Equal Opportunities: equality of genders, work/life balance, diversity management and non-discrimination.

With this project we have integrated the gender perspective in quality systems in order to achieve real total quality.

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