On 4 March, the European Commission published its proposal for a Directive on pay transparency. Ceemet fully supports the objective of the proposal: women and men should receive equal pay for equal work or work of equal value. However, a Directive imposing binding pay transparency measures is not the way forward.
The European tech and industry employers consider equal pay to be of vital importance as actual pay discrimination is unacceptable. In our sector, collective agreements are gender neutral and foresee equal pay between men and women for work of equal value.
In practice, gender neutral collective agreements should result in the fact that there is no difference in pay between men and women. Nonetheless, there are cultural approaches or societal models, which have no link with discrimination, but can lead to the reality that there is a difference in pay. This proposal, which imposes far-reaching pay transparency measures, does not address and improve the framework conditions for women in working life, nor their participation in the labour market and consequently their income prospects. Therefore, it does not address issues as gender segregation in the labour market and women’s employment rates, which are main causes of the problem.
The proposed obligations for companies such as the information obligation and the reporting duty will inevitably create additional costs and administrative burden on companies while the effect of these measures will be minor at best for employees. Ceemet therefore concludes that this proposal for a Directive is not the way forward to achieve the objective envisaged by the Commission. We call on the Commission to explore other means which help create real equal opportunities between men and women on the labour market. This could be achieved by encouraging Member States to provide easily accessible and affordable (child-) care facilities, career guidance and a focus on educational choices for both girls and boys in order to encourage a cultural shift.