The rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs of the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) and Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) committees charged with the Directive on equal pay for equal work sealed a provisional political agreement on Friday 4 March in the afternoon.
In particular, they agreed to lower the threshold to 50 employees for disclosing certain internal information such as the gender pay gap in the organisation in order to facilitate the comparison of salaries between employees of the same employer. The European Commission had proposed a threshold of 250 employees (see EUROPE 12671/1).
Similarly, the parliamentary negotiating group agreed to lower the conditionality threshold for the pay gap between workers at which a company is obliged to carry out a pay audit in cooperation with workers’ representatives.
The European Commission had written into the text that any unjustified pay gap, i.e. based on non-objective and sexist factors, of at least 5% between men and women would trigger a correction procedure with employee representatives. The rapporteurs would have opted for a compromise lowering the rate to 2.5%.
Another important point is that MEPs agreed to broaden the scope of the Directive by going beyond the gender divide. This is in order to adopt a gender-sensitive approach and to embrace a broader spectrum of potential discrimination.
The negotiations, which lasted more than six months, were arduous. Renew Europe, EPP, ECR sought to avoid further red tape, although the EPP shadow rapporteurs were reported to have taken a conciliatory stance (see EUROPE 12786/21), in particular Sirpa Pietikaïnen (EPP, Finland), we were told. The rapporteur Samira Rafaela (Renew Europe, Netherlands) is said to have had rather rigid positions, which slowed down the negotiations. According to one observer, however, the conditionality threshold of 2.5% is problematic, as it means de facto that a discriminatory situation is still tolerated, even if it is unjustified.
The EMPL and FEMM committees will vote on the compromise agreements at a joint session on 17 March.
On the EU Council side, the Member States adopted their position last December (see EUROPE 12847/3), maintaining the threshold at 250 employees for applying the conditions for disclosing pay differentials. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)