Equal pay for equal work moving forward with pay transparency
In the beginning of March the European Commission submitted a directive proposal on pay transparency, which aims at targeting the right to equal pay between women and men for equal work or work of equal value. Eurocadres welcomes its content, which will increase access to information and tools to promote equal pay.
The directive is good starting point, but some further adjustments are needed. The directive should be based on four pillars:
- The obligation for all employers, of all sizes and in the public and private sectors, to adopt pay transparency policies and practices, including gender pay audits.
- Promoting the role of collective bargaining in negotiating equal pay.
- Address the main drivers of the gender pay gap: lower paid female-dominated sectors, lower paid jobs, unequal participation in domestic and care work and wage discrimination.
- Provide effective access to justice, including remedies and procedures, such as shifting the burden of proof, compensation and support for victims of pay discrimination.
The Directive will give each worker the right to get certain information about their pay and about pay in the organisation they work in, and employers are required to publish annual reports on the gender pay gap and action plans to tackle the gap. The obligation to make a salary report and assessment is limited to organisations of more than 250 people. This upper limit is way too high. The number of small and medium sized enterprises is constantly growing. Therefore, the directive should cover all companies regardless of their size as to guarantee the right to adequate pay information of all employees.
The directive should cover all companies regardless of their size as to guarantee the right to adequate pay information of all employees.
We demand the directive to strengthen the role of trade unions and grant the opportunity to challenge partiality in the criteria used to determine job descriptions and assessments, salary categories as well as to establish the categories to be compared. It must be guaranteed that trade unions can be involved in job category assessments and to bargain to close the pay gap, so as to prevent company superiors to set up false workers’ representatives.
Read Eurocadres’ full opinion here.