2023-05-19 12:49:33
Five engineers from Valencia have launched a judicial fight so that the demarcation of the Valencian Community of the College of Civil Engineers, Canals and Ports has a “commission for equality, women and engineering”. The Contentious-Administrative Court number 10 of Valencia has just admitted his appeal for processing after the institution rejected the request of twenty collegiate associations to create it. Although the commission had already existed since 2020, after last year’s elections to the territorial management bodies of the school, the new governing board, led by Javier Machí, undertook a “reorganization”. As a result of this, the “commission for equality, women and engineering” was canceled and was included in the “commission for the defense of the profession, quality employment and equal opportunities”, with very different objectives, as detailed by the institution website.
As a result, the twenty members asked the new board to set up the previously canceled women’s commission, which it opposed. However, as stated in a response from the college, after the complaints, “and in view of the feeling” that a “high number” of colleges had also been transferred to him”, he decided to “reformulate its character and operation”, directing matters related to women in engineering to a line of work, whose objectives, to this day, are “in construction”, according to the school website.
A remodeling that, in the opinion of one of the appellants, the former vice dean Junco Riera, who competed with dean Machí in the elections, “dilutes and makes women invisible in the exercise of a profession as masculinized as engineering. If the women’s commission had not existed, we could even see the line of work as an advance, but the fact is that they have charged the commission, and that is a step backwards”. Under the umbrella of “equal opportunities” fit “thousands of things,” she denounces. “They have even removed the word woman.”
Although the governing board invited the twenty people “to participate actively” in the line of work, they opposed it, understanding that, since it was created after the petition to establish the women’s commission, the offer responded to a Argument to deny it under the argument of the “duplicity” of functions. “The governing board has fabricated a reason to this”, Riera maintains.
the line of work
At a hierarchical level, the lines of work are less important than the commissions and are usually established to deal with specific or specific issues. In fact, the one created by the governing board has to report “to the general commission” for the defense of the profession, quality employment and equal opportunities, which unfolds into two other lines of work: public service and quality employment.
In less than two years, and with the pandemic in between, the extinct “commission for equality, women and engineering” made “contributions to the draft of the new equality law of the Valencian Community, with the assistance of several of the components of the commission to the working groups convened by the Generalitat for this purpose; repeatedly requested the change of name of the college, going from “college of engineers” to “college of engineering”; met with the Union of Valencian Journalists to promote the presence of engineers in news items or developed campaigns on equality”, says Riera. “The school has to defend equality between men and women. In the Valencian Community we are only 14.72% of the total number of members. Women face discriminatory situations” for the mere fact of being women, such as wage differences for the same work.
The arguments of the school
Consulted by this newspaper, the demarcation of the Valencian Community of the College of Civil Engineers, Canals and Ports highlights, among the actions carried out in a year by the controversial line of work on women, “several interventions in radio programs, round tables , intercollegiate meetings, participation in the STEAM chair at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and a photographic exhibition to highlight the leadership and work” of the engineers.
“The current governing board decided, unanimously, to reorganize all the commissions that were in progress up to the time of his inauguration” because it was “one of the proposals that were included in his electoral program and that were supported by a large majority of the collegiate people ”, he argues.
“We want to clarify that the organization of the commission for the defense of the profession, quality employment and equal opportunities responds to the intention of seeking better transversality and participation. This governing board understands that there can be no quality employment or defense of the profession without equal opportunities for all registered persons, whether for reasons of gender, abilities, functionalities, age, religion or culture. Defending diversity, equality and equity, without discrimination of any kind, was one of the main reasons why the scope of the commission of the previous board was expanded, with the intention of guaranteeing a greater inclusion of people, and adapt our institution to the needs and demands of today’s society. Transversality not only affects the commission for the defense of the profession, quality employment, equal opportunities and internationalization, but also other commissions, such as water, environment and climate change”.
The resource
Currently, the ball is in the hands of justice, which has to determine if the suppression of the equality, women and engineering commission was adjusted to Law or not. From the demarcation of the Valencian Community of the College of Civil Engineers, Canals and Ports, they explain to this newspaper that, in the first place, “they will allege the lack of competence” of the court to know the facts. “The creation of consultative instances of collegiate bodies, such as a commission, is not a public function subject to administrative law nor, therefore, appealable before the contentious-administrative jurisdiction,” he maintains. “The legal direction of the school did not appreciate in the decision of the governing board any illegality or breach of the collegiate regulations.”
On the contrary, Isaac Pebble, legal director of Olympe Abogados, who defends the appellants, maintains that the cancellation of the commission is an act subject to administrative law. “If it were as the demarcation says, the court would not have admitted the appeal. That he has admitted it for processing gives us hope.” The lawyer defends that “the invisibility of women in engineering is at stake”. . Going from a commission to a line of work is a terrible downgrade.”
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