A European seminar on “The European care strategy, a pillar of social dialogue” was held on 12-14 February in Ciudad Real, Spain, organised by Afammer (National Confederation of the Federation and Associations of Families and Women in Rural Areas), in cooperation with EZA and funded by the European Union.
Carmen Quintanilla, the National President of Afammer, ensured that all the time spent in Ciudad Real would focus on the debate on care. Once again, the voices of rural women, urban women, workers’ organisations and trade unions have served as a network for sharing the needs in the care sector, as well as attempting to reconcile and address the many demands and shortcomings that different experts have put forward in our times.
This seminar highlighted the shared responsibilities in the lives of caregivers. The seminar demonstrated the importance of advocating the situation of caregivers (as the majority are women), that investing in care is an investment in gender equality and social justice. The great challenge for Spain and Europe is to guarantee the right to care and to reappraise the value of care work. Participants were able to listen to the experiences of speakers from France, Romania, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, including representatives of unions, care employers and caregivers.
Conclusions
All the attendees shared a common aim: to ensure social welfare.
Women have shown that they are a flexible, adaptable and multi-tasking workforce. The role played by women as caregivers is clear, but it does not receive the recognition it deserves.
As a society, we must appreciate that caregivers have already left the family environment and must therefore create an infrastructure and a professional status for caregivers.
We cannot speak of true social dialogue without awareness and a shared responsibility.
We must make a pledge to invest in the care strategy.
For this purpose, the key points agreed by all participants was the need for the various governments of our countries to provide the necessary budgets to make progress in the social healthcare system and to make a firm commitment to adapt the laws to achieve reconciliation and shared responsibility, otherwise we cannot engage in a true social dialogue.
Seminars like this should serve to achieve this and raise awareness within society and, above all, among those who have the opportunity and power to make it a reality.
Let us continue to work hard to ensure we have made the work-family-personal life balance a reality by the next European seminar. Only then can we declare that we have achieved real equality.
Those who choose to live in rural areas must be guaranteed the same conditions as urban dwellers, because
life in rural areas would cease to exist without families or women.
It is important to provide a range of economic activities in rural areas to expand the development of life in the rural sphere.
Here is a summary of some of the thoughts of the speakers at the seminar:
Women are synonymous with the future! Where there are no women, there is no future.
We have recognised the value of the caregiver.
How do we promote this role? And on a voluntary basis?
Social justice - social dialogue.
There is no complaint without a proposal, nor complaint without an initiative.
From information to action.
We still have a demographic problem.
Both before and after Covid-19.
Ecological and sustainable well-being.
An individual assistance scheme.
The European Care Strategy has been approved, but little has been achieved to date. Let's drive it forward.
Improve, fund and promote active employment policies.
European culture, opportunities for young people and women.
A differentiated tax policy must be implemented.
To people who say that a social Europe would be invisible, tell them that air is invisible, but fundamental to life.