Companies must include salary audits in equality plans | Society
One week before March 8, International Women's Day, the Government has fine-tuned the decree with which it aims to combat labor inequalities between men and women, which includes as a star measure equal, non-transferable and paid paternity and maternity leave. The document, which passes this Friday by the Council of Ministers, downgrades to companies of 50 workers the need to prepare equality plans, which will be much more detailed than what was included in the Equality Act of 2007.
Companies must make a "negotiated diagnosis" of "evaluable measures" that includes a salary audit between men and women and an analysis of whether there is a female underrepresentation or a pay gap. This is how one of the last drafts of the decree, to which this newspaper has had access, and which can still change, compiles.
These plans must be presented in a specific register, which will be part of the collective agreements registers. And they should make available to the staff the data on average salaries and salary supplements for men and women.
All these measures involve expanding the contents already developed in these plans and also the companies that must implement them. At present the 250 employees already take some measures. But in three years, in a phased manner, the new plans will have to reach those with 150 or more employees the first year; the second, 100 or more, and the third, those of 50.
The Executive has taken advantage of this decree of "guarantee of equal treatment and opportunities between men and women in employment and occupation" to include other issues. Among them, the payment of the contribution of caregivers of dependents, which will leave the public coffers as it was until it was eliminated with the 2012 cuts.
The pressure of the secretaries of State
The main measure of the decree is the equalization of paternity leave - currently five weeks - with maternity, of 16. Although it appeared in the first drafts of the Executive, this week has caused tensions between different departments of the Government. The pressure of the Secretaries of State of Equality, Soledad Murillo; of Employment, Yolanda Valdeolivas; and of the Treasury, Inés Bardón, overcame the resistance, according to sources familiar with the negotiation.
The comparison will be progressive: it will pass to eight weeks the day after its publication in the BOE; up to 12 weeks in 2020 and 16 in 2021. Increasing the permission of men from five weeks to 16 is 1,266 million euros more, according to estimates of the Ministry of Labor. The form of enjoyment of these permits is a copy of the proposal that the PSOE had in its electoral program. It provides for a leave of six uninterrupted weeks for both after birth and another 10 weeks for each to be distributed until the baby reaches one year. The Platform for Equal and Untransferable Permits (Ppiina) demanded that they not be taken simultaneously to encourage men to "take care with mothers".
