Amidst applause, the European Parliament’s Employment (EMPL) and Gender Equality (FEMM) Committees approved the provisional compromise on the pay transparency directive (see EUROPE 13089/1) with 62 votes in favour, 8 against and no abstentions.
“We are finally securing the binding legislation needed to tackle pay discrimination”, said co-rapporteur Samira Rafaela (Renew Europe, Dutch). “We are making history: for the first time in European legislation, we have defined intersectional discrimination, and have explicitly included non-binary people in a Directive”. Indeed, if a worker who feels that he or she has been discriminated against on pay claims compensation, the fact that he or she has faced multiple discrimination (‘intersectionality’ ) will be considered an aggravating factor.
Co-rapporteur Kira Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA, Danish) also welcomed the negotiation efforts, recalling the difficulties in obtaining a “progressive and inclusive text” and in “standing firm on the 250 [employee] threshold”. “But the Parliament has gone beyond its ambitions”, she added. The final text stipulates that all employers must provide their employees with a description of the gender-neutral criteria used to determine their pay, as well as disaggregated data on pay in the company. In parallel, it introduces obligations for companies with more than 100 employees to make public the gender pay gap.
The text should be submitted to the European Parliament plenary session in February. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)