The European Parliament and Council, has passed a directive aimed at enhancing the implementation of the equal pay principle for men and women. The directive focuses on promoting pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms to ensure equal compensation for equal work or work of comparable worth. The directive will be effective fromJune 5, 2023.
The purpose of this directive is to address the wage disparity between men and women and promote transparency in payment matters. It mandates that employers must provide prospective and current employees with information regarding payment criteria, opportunities for salary increases, and other relevant details.
According to the directive, employers will be obligated to disclose certain information to candidates during the recruitment process, the initial salary for the position in question being top on the list. This will be determined based on objective criteria that are impartial to gender. Other information includes specific clauses within the collective employment agreement that are relevant to the position.
Along with disclosing the information, the directive also introduces key measures to enhance transparency in labour relations. Some of these measures include the right to receive annual information about individual wage levels for the employees, and average levels (segregated by gender), and categories of workers performing similar tasks or work of comparable value.
Also, employers are obligated to provide this information to employees, and cannot impose confidentiality agreements on employees that cover salary details.
The reporting deadline for the aforementioned data varies based on the number of employees within an organisation and are based on various requirements:
Employers with a workforce of 250 or more employees must report by June 7, 2027, and annually thereafter.
Employers with a workforce ranging from 150 to 249 employees must report by June 7, 2027, and once every three years thereafter.
Employers with a workforce ranging from 100 to 149 employees must report by June 7, 2031, and once every three years thereafter.
For employers with fewer than 100 employees, the directive does not enforce a mandatory reporting requirement. However, it does provide the option for voluntary reporting.
