Welcome to our new ETF Women’s Steering Committee

Last week, at ETF’s 6th Congress, a new ETF Women’s Steering Committee was elected.

Before starting the election process, the ETF held their Women’s Conference with a panel on “Women leadership: key for gender equality in transport”.

Panel speakers Juana Olmeda Gomez, General Secretary of FSC-CC.OO; Livia Spera, General Secretary of ETF; Kata Tütto, Vice-Mayor of the City of Budapest and member of the European Committee of the Regions; Isabel Pardo de Vera Posada, Secretary of State in the Spanish Transport Ministry and Katharina Stierl, Fridays for Future Germany touched upon barriers keeping women from leadership positions. Panellists and participants unanimously agreed that the fight for gender equality is everyone’s fight, and it starts at home. 

Esther Lynch, ETUC Deputy General Secretary spoke on the EU Pay Transparency Directive, underlining women cannot continue to wait for equal pay.

A powerful ETF relies on powerful woman transport workers

Emboldened with powerful words on women’s leadership from panellists, we look forward to working on issues affecting women transport workers, and making the sector fit for women to work in over the next five years with our new team!

ETF Women’s Steering Committee

The ETF Women’s Steering Committee is composed of 1 Chair, 8 Ordinary Members, and the Section and Youth Women Representatives.

Based on the votes of our members, the ETF Women’s Steering Committee is composed as follows:

One Chair:

• Sara Tripodi, FILT-CGIL, Italy

Ordinary Members – of these 8 members, two Vice-Chairwomen will be elected at the first meeting of the new Women’s Committee

• Vana Bosto, Seafarers Union of Croatia, Croatia
• Erina Bryn Kjaer, Norwegian Seafarers’ Union, Norway
• Tracie Clugston, Unite the Union, United Kingdom
• Silvana Francken-Belfi, FNV, Netherlands
• Olivia Janisch, Vida, Austria
• Astrid König, Kommunal, Sweden
• Patricia Lauder Garcia, FSC-CCOO, Spain
• Antoaneta Stoimenova, FTTUB, Bulgaria

Women’s Committee Section Representatives:

• Liesbet Verboven, ACV Transcom, Belgium, Road Transport Representative
• Tonca Cupic, Sindikat Pomoraca Hrvatske Croatia, Maritime Transport Representative
• Vana Bosto, Seafarers Unions of Croatia, Croatia, Inland Waterways Representative
• Anneli Nyberg, Parat, Norway, Civil Aviation Representative
• Jolanta Skalska, EVG, Germany, Railways Representative
• Sylvie Roux, FGTE-CFDT, France, Fisheries Representative
• Hatice Pantir, LİMAN-İŞ SENDİKASI, Turkey, Dockers Representative
• Vacant: Inland Waterways Representative

Women’s Committee Youth Representative

• Lara Santamaría García, FSC-CCOO, Spain

Background on changes

On the occasion of ETF’s 6th Congress, the ETF Women’s Committee underwent a number of changes to broaden the basis for more engagement from ETF’s members: the establishment of an ETF Women’s Steering Committee, and the opening of the ETF Women’s Committee to all affiliated unions declaring women’s membership.

The ETF Women’s Committee now consists of women representatives from all ETF affiliated unions declaring women membership, meaning each affiliated union declaring women membership shall have the right to participate in the work of the Women’s Committee.

The ETF Women’s Steering Committee consists of

• The Chair of the ETF Women’s Committee elected by the Conference;
• 8 (eight) ordinary members elected by the Conference – among these 8 members are two Vice-Chairwomen to be elected at the first meeting after the Conference
• One woman representative from each ETF Section, elected by the respective Sections and one woman representative from the Youth Committee, elected by the Youth Conference.

The 8 ordinary members of the ETF Women’s Steering Committee and the Chair of the ETF Women’s Committee will represent women transport workers in the ETF Executive Committee as members of the ETF Executive Committee.

The ETF Women’s Committee Chair is an ex-officio member of the  ETF Management Committee, representing the Women’s Committee in this governing body.