The Confederation on families‘ work-life balance

The employers‘ association supports measures to improve the access to the financially affordable child care.

The Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic greets the European Commission’s initiative to accelerate and facilitate the labour market entry of parents with children (especially in case of women). That’s in compliance with the Europe 2020 strategy’s objectives in helping the employers and entrepreneurs to fully use the potential of the workforce.

In particular, the Confederation supports the measures aimed at improving the access to the high-quality and financially affordable child care. On the contrary, the Confederation doesn’t support the creation of new legislative on the EU-level and the reference framework settings.

The Confederation recommends to the European Commission not to generate a single model for everybody and to respect the individual decisions of the families to arrange the family regime and to reconcile it with their professional life in accordance to their needs. The EU Commission‘s role should consist in monitoring the situation in the member countries and in presenting the examples of good practice and deconstucting the stereotypes.

The European Commission published the roadmap for the initiative „A new start to address the challenges of work-life balance faced by working families“ in August 2015. This initiative should replace the 2008 EU Commission‘s proposal on the review of the maternity leave directive with the goal of increasing female participation in the labour market and promoting equality between women and men.

Pursuant the Article 154(2) of the TFEU, the EU Commission has launched the first phase of consultations with the European social partners with the aim to know their views.