All workers can know the average salary of the men and women of your company

All workers can know the average salary of the men and women of your company

The Government will not allow a wage gap greater than 25%, according to the royal decree that will presumably be approved this Friday

  All companies, regardless of the number of workers they have, will be required to keep a record with the average salary of their employees disaggregated by sex and if there is a gap greater than 25% will be considered wage discrimination.

   This is reflected in the draft of the Royal Decree-Law on urgent measures that the Government will approve predictably this coming Friday, in its last Council of Ministers before the Cortes is dissolved - as the president himself announced this past weekend-, and with the aim of "guaranteeing equal treatment and opportunities between men and women in employment and occupation".

The Executive admits that the "pioneer" law in the development of gender equality rights passed in 2007 has obtained "discrete, if not insignificant" results and inequality in working conditions persists today .of men and women "unbearable and unjustifiable" that "demands an urgent and necessary action on the part of the State, since half of the population is suffering a strong discrimination and is seeing their fundamental rights affected". This is how it justifies approving this series of measures through a Royal Decree Law, only contemplated in cases of urgent need, and points out that "a greater delay, taking into account the elapsed time, would entail a damage of difficult repair that can not be assumed by a modern society like the Spanish one ».

However, the Government in this new law sets a maximum of 25% wage gap allowed, exceeding the 23% existing average currently, according to the latest data published in a report by UGT. And it is that in this draft it is considered that there will be wage discrimination based on sex when in a company with at least 25 workers the average remuneration for employees of one sex is 25% or more higher than those of the other sex, taking into account the whole of the salary mass or the average of the perceptions paid, unless the employer demonstrates with evidence that there are "reasons not related to the sex of the workers" for this gap to exist.

So far the wage gap was not possible to quantify in most Spanish companies (with a fabric formed mostly by micro-SMEs), but at the time this Law comes into force yes, since it states that "the employer is obliged to keep a record with the average values ​​of salaries, salary supplements and extra- salary perceptions of their workforce, disaggregated by sex and distributed by professional groups, professional categories or equal or equal work positions ». And this salary register will have the right to access any worker, as it appears in the text of the draft to which this newspaper has accessed.

More equality plans

In turn, the Government extends to companies with more than 50 workers the obligation to have an equality plan, something that until now was only required to companies with more than 250 employees . In this way, almost 2.3 million additional workers will benefit from an equality plan, according to data extracted from the Ministry of Economy. If this is added to the 5.1 million people employed in large companies, there will be almost 8 million workers.

The around 23,400 companies that have between 50 and 249 employees will have a period of one year from the entry into force of the decree to prepare, negotiate and register voluntarily the equality plan- moment from which it will become mandatory- , which will contain a set of evaluable measures on subjects such as the selection process, professional classification, training, promotion and prevention of sexual harassment, among others. To this end, a registry of equality plans of the companies will be created, which will depend on the General Directorate of Labor and, in turn, the autonomous communities will have their own registry.

The paternity leave for another term

The Government has included in this draft the progressive extension of paternity leave to 16 weeks to match that of women. In this way, a permit is set for 8 weeks from its entry into force (ie, the day after publication in the BOE), which will increase to 12 weeks in 2020 and 16 weeks in 2021. The first six weeks will be enjoyed daily complete , while the remaining ten may be distributed full-time or part-time throughout the first year of life of the child, without being able to be transferred to the other parent.

However, government sources assured this newspaper that finally this measure will not be approved in this legislature, most likely because of the high cost it would have (more than 300 million just for this year) and for which no item is reported.

While the unions welcome with joy a royal decree that gathers "almost all its demands" in this matter, from CEOE its president, Antonio Garamendi, criticized once again Monday resorting to royal decrees-law "in an electoral period" like the one now opens in Spain on matters that "are not urgent," as required by the Constitution.