History of the women's committee/now: Equal Opportunity Committee

In the middle of 1995 the working group "women at GSI" was initiated following a lecture by Dr. Abelmann from the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, the first women's representative of a large-scale research facility.

Employment agreement

The first task of the working group was the development of an employment agreement "Equal Opportunity for Women at GSI", which formed the basis for the work of the Equal Opportunity Committee which is now in its fourth term. The necessity of an employment agreement comes from the fact that the federal Equal Opportunity law is valid for GSI and not the more effective "Hessian Equal Opportunity law". A new employment agreement "Equal opportunities for women and men at GSI" has now been drawn up as a result of a new federal law "Gleichstellungsdurchsetzungsgesetz" DGleiG which took effect on December 16, 2002.

Support Plan

On the basis of the second federal equal opportunity law, the Equal Opportunity Committee developed a "Support plan for women", which was signed on October 11, 1999. It defines the general framework for the advancement of women at GSI. This plan was replaced in December 2002 by the new support plan "Equal opportunites for women and men at GSI".

 Equal Opportunity Committee (since 2004)

In accordance with the employment agreement, five women are elected into the committee every three years. They, in turn, elect from their midst the women's representative and her deputy, who are then appointed by the directorate. They officially represent the Equal Opportunity Committee and are supported in their work by the other three women.
Following the wishes of the directorate of working with only two women's representatives, the participation in GSI committees is limited to the women's representative and her deputy. An exception is the room allocation committee, in which Hannelore Gundlach represents women's interests. The Equal Opportunity Committee only participates in committees which affect the interests of women (trainee-selection commission, personnel planning, room allocation committee).

The Equal Opportunity Committee supports you when you need

• information on the advancement of women
• find yourself in situations in which you need support, advice and help (e.g. pay scale grouping, hiring, promotion, child care)
• have suggestions and wishes regarding women's issues at GSI want to file a complaint in case of discrimination or sexual harassment