Gender equality

The social partners of the EU Social Dialogue Committee in the Audiovisual sector – commercial and public broadcasters, producers, and trade unions representing journalists, cast and crew – adopted in 2011 a Framework of Actions (FoA) on gender equality.

The objective of the FoA was to support organisations in the European audiovisual sector to develop their practices with a view to enhancing gender equality. It put forward joint considerations and recommendations for actions in five key areas: gender portrayal, equality of pay, equality in decision making, gender roles in the workplace, and reconciliation of work and private life.

In 2018, as a follow up action, the social partners launched a joint mapping exercise to collect information on the state-of-play and to identify the actions still needed to keep pushing for gender equality in the European Audiovisual sector. The result of this work was published in May 2020 in the form of a Good Practice Handbook.

When concluding the mapping exercise, the EU social partners agreed that the Framework of Actions remained a very relevant instrument and that, with the Handbook, they were ‘living working tools that the European social partners will continue to use to address more issues, further develop joint policies and adapt their actions’.

To strengthen its impact, the EU social partners decided to add to the Framework of Actions a new chapter dedicated to the elimination of bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment at work.

The updated framework of actions has been finalised and adopted by the European social partners in May 2023. The document is also available in French and Spanish.