Sex discrimination in the Italian labour market

Sex discrimination in the Italian labour market:

The last Eurostat report about the situation of the employment among EUs countries at 2006 states that Italy ranks on the last position in Europe in terms of female employment (except Malta Island).
This is due to several reasons, but with this petition Ill try to examine some of them, simple but unacceptable.

The petition concerns the injustices that an Italian female citizen has to face whenever she wants to find a job. It is a fact that everyday women have a weaker deal power even before entering the labour market.

The hurdles start since the moment of the job advertisement. In Italy the 80\% of them have unjustified age limits. Several job ads show for example the frequency of the 30s limit for many jobs that obviously dont need a limitation.

As you can find looking through job search web sites many companies oblige you to declare your age, sex, civil statuswhen filling in an application form looking for a job. I think that these questions dont have anything to do with jobs like editing, team leading, management or secretarial position. These are absolutely unjustified and unfitting requests because unnecessary to determinate a professional profile and the capability of the subject.
These personal data at the selectors disposal become very often a reason of discrimination between male and female candidates, influencing the choice in favour of the first one.

Questions like Are you thinking about getting married? Do you have any children? Are you thinking about having children? very often have been asked to my friends, to me, to many women who are contacting me after knowing about this petition.
An hypothetical pregnancy, children at home, all these things are seen as negative elements against female candidate. That is with no doubt an unacceptable discrimination inside the general context of the European community.

It is a fact that too often for several different kind of jobs, it is required the so called bella presenza that means good looking. It is unacceptable that many job offers that we can find in the noticeboard, on newspapers and on the most famous job search web sites like www.monster.it require good looking people even for position in which there is no need of it.

Indeed the Italian legislative decrees n.145 dated 30 May 2005 and n. 217 dated 9 July 2003 which implement the European Union directives 2002/73/CE and 2000/78/CE are unfit to assure the equal treatment for man and woman during a process of job selection, because only female workers who have been subjected to direct and indirect discriminations can go to the court, but it isnt the same for those women who are still outside labour market.

1) Acording to the Italian legislative decree n.216 dated 9 July 2003 the principle of equity of treatment states his validity only in cases of a stable job, as the artcle n. 4 shows. To confirm this, the succeeding article n. 5 indicates that trade unions local units can act in support of the subject being object of discrimination. As a consequence of this, female candidate refused from the selection in this case could not have assistance from the local representative of Trade Unions, because her position is not connected to a collective agreement, nor could the applicant call the Labour Judge.

2) According to the Italian legislative decree n. 145 dated 30 May 2005 the suppression of direct and indirect discriminations which can be made towards female workers is provided only in areas concerning working relationships already existing.
Furthermore, the adoption of positive actions focused on equality gender in the working environment is not required by law for companies but only optional.
As we can deduct by the article n. 4 of the abovementioned law, female workers have always and exclusively the right to go to the Court and Labour Judge, but this right is denied to women who are outside labour market.

At last whatever legal action, even if it has been made in front of the Ordinary Judge (who deals with civil courts), it would find several problems on evidential matters because the companies have a complete discretion in choosing selective criteria.
Although many Italian job advertisements welcome applications from suitably qualified people regardless of gender there is not a real warrant for the job female applicants until they are obliged to answer to inappropriate questions.
At the end of the interviews, the unquestionable decision of the company will remain as matter of fact.

With this petition we ask for as European citizens the mediation of this Parliament according to the principle of subsidiarity. In concrete terms, we ask for the Parliament to oblige Italy to fall into line with the European directives, taking as a model the Irish Equality Act or the British Code of Practice of the Sex Discrimination Act. Italian law should include itself the ban by requiring data like age and physical aspects in job ads and during the interviews the ban by asking for personal information (age, civil status, ...) that can generate sexual discriminations.