Employers may soon have to include salary in job advertisements. The so-called confidentiality clauses on the amount of wages or salary should also be abolished. This is to be amended by an amendment to the Labour Code, which the Labour Ministry is expected to submit next year. The plan of measures for equal pay for women and men for the years 2023 to 2026. The 80-page document was approved by the government before Christmas. The Czech Republic is one of the countries in the EU with the largest gender pay gap. According to the document, women earn about 17 percent less on average. In the same positions for comparable work, they earn one tenth less in companies and five percent less in the public sector.
Remuneration structures are opaque, male and female applicants are often not informed of their salary levels before starting work, male and female employees lack sufficient clarity about remuneration systems, policies and rules in companies and organisations, they do not understand their pay slips, and there is hardly any discussion about remuneration, the document states.
The author team says that in 2018, the average pay for men and women in the country differed by 19 per cent overall. The difference was 15 per cent in the same workplace, 14 per cent in the same job category (CZ-ISCO classification) and nine per cent in the same job. In 2020, women earned 17 per cent less on average, 15 per cent less in the same workplace, 13 per cent less in the same job category and nine per cent less for the same job in the same location. The difference was 15 per cent for men and women with primary education, 22 per cent for those with an apprenticeship, 19 per cent for high school graduates and 19 per cent for those with a high school diploma, and 26 per cent for college graduates and undergraduates. However, the differences in the average number of hours worked are very small and cannot explain the difference in pay, the document says. Women’s lower earnings have a negative impact on family budgets and household living standards, translating into smaller pensions in old age. The state, in turn, loses revenue from taxes and levies.
According to the document, the causes of the gender pay gap are already in education, in the direction of girls into lower-paying fields, and in prejudice, obstacles to reconciling work and family care and discrimination. The team identifies non-transparency as one of the main obstacles.
The plan therefore envisages extending the ’employer information obligation’ in job advertisements. They would now have to include the basic salary, the remuneration for the agreement work, or the range of remuneration offered. “The lowest and highest amounts are defined by a threshold of plus/minus ten percent of the median,” the material says. There is an obligation to disclose remuneration data in, for example, Slovakia or Austria.
The document also foresees the “elimination of confidentiality clauses” on the amount of salary or wages. According to the plan, the so-called nullity of their negotiation should be explicitly established. This term means that the clauses are to be regarded as if they did not exist. Their conclusion would have no legal weight or effect. This practice applies, for example, in Slovakia. The introduction of nullity clauses in the Czech Republic was recommended earlier by the former Ombudsman.
Both intentions should be regulated by an amendment to the Labour Code. According to the plan, the Ministry of Labour should submit its draft next year. The measures are based on the forthcoming European directive on equal pay for equal or equivalent work. Negotiating the regulation was one of the Czech Republic’s tasks during its presidency. A political agreement was reached between the EU Council and the European Parliament before Christmas.
Source: CTK
