Brussels, 8 March 2026 – On International Women’s Day, EFFAT reaffirms a simple message: gender equality is not a slogan. It is a collective bargaining priority, a workplace right, and a trade union responsibility.
EFFAT knows it well. Through the recent campaign #UnequalNoMore, we invested in building concrete, enforceable solutions to bridge the systemic gender inequality that affect women workers across our sectors.
In food and drink, agriculture, tourism, and domestic work – women remain overrepresented in low-paid, precarious, and undervalued jobs. Migrant women workers are particularly exposed to inequality, discrimination, and violence.
Enrico Somaglia, EFFAT General Secretary, said: “Gender equality cannot remain on paper or in political speeches. It must be negotiated, enforced, and monitored at every level, from the factory floor to the boardroom. Through the #UnequalNoMore campaign, we are equipping our affiliates with the tools to turn principles into practice and ensure that women workers across Europe get the fair treatment they deserve.”
Through #UnequalNoMore campaign, EFFAT and its affiliates have developed practical instruments designed to move from principle to implementation.
The Action and Advocacy Guide
The Action and Advocacy Guide equip trade unions with structured strategies to address gender inequalities across workplaces and sectors. It provides a clear roadmap for identifying gaps, building alliances, negotiating equality, and ensuring monitoring and accountability.
The EFFAT Template Company Agreement on Gender Equality
The Template Company Agreement provides a concrete framework for negotiating gender equality provisions within companies both at national or transnational levels. It addresses equal pay, pay transparency, work-life balance, career progression, health and safety safeguards for women with specific needs and measures to prevent and combat gender-based violence and harassment.
These instruments strengthen the capacity of EFFAT affiliates to ensure that gender equality is embedded in collective agreements and company practices across Europe.
A Decisive Year for Equal Pay
With the EU Pay Transparency Directive to be implemented by June 2026, gender equality is entering a new enforcement phase. This legislative development reinforces what trade unions have long demanded: transparency, accountability and corrective measures where pay discrimination exists.
Grace Papa, EFFAT Policy Officer for Gender Equality said: “EFFAT and its members are actively engaged in national transposition processes, sectoral dialogue and company-level negotiations to ensure that implementation is meaningful and ambitious. Pay transparency must lead to pay correction. Reporting must lead to accountability. Compliance must lead to structural change.”
A Strong and Coordinated Trade Union Response
Across Europe, EFFAT members are already integrating gender equality into collective bargaining agendas, company agreements and social dialogue structures. The tools developed under #UnequalNoMore reinforce this coordinated approach and ensure consistency across sectors and borders.
On this International Women’s Day, EFFAT reaffirms that equality at work is non-negotiable, and that our movement is equipped, organised and determined to ensure that companies and policymakers turn commitments into concrete results for women.
#UnequalNoMore
Learn more about the campaign here
#IWD26
