The requirement of equality plans is extended, without even having an official record

Companies with between 150 and 249 workers must have equality plans as of March 8, an obligation that since 2007 already has large companies with more than 250 employees, although there is still no official record that allows monitoring of Compliance

On March 8, 2019, the decree law entered into force with measures to guarantee labor equality, which gave a medium-term term to medium-sized companies from 150 workers to implement their equality plans and that left a further development regulatory instructions on how to do it and the creation of a record to take stock.

Pending that regulation, the Labor Inspectorate is the only one that verifies whether the duty of having an equality plan is fulfilled and that which can sanction the company in case of non-compliance.

According to the annual reports of the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate, since 2007 and until 2018 (last available) 11,600 actions related to equality plans and other obligations of the equality law have been carried out, which have resulted in sanctions on 257 companies.

The penalties imposed in the eleven years of balance barely touch the 1.2 million euros, given that the maximum amount contemplated is 6,250 euros per company.

As stated in the equality law of 2007, companies with more than 250 workers had to have a set of measures aimed at eliminating obstacles that impede or hinder the effective equality of women and men.

However, the steps to be taken for its correct elaboration were not specified until the decree law of equality in employment last year, which included the need to make a previous diagnosis of the situation in each company and create a registry.

Sources of the Ministry of Labor have explained to Efe that it is working on that regulation that will detail how an equality plan should be drawn up and will include the creation of the official registry, which will allow a balance of them from then on.

This regulation will also develop the guidelines for the preparation of the diagnosis, the contents, the subjects, the salary audits, the monitoring systems and the evaluation of the equality plans.

The president of the Labor and Social Security Inspectors union, Ana Ercoreca, has lamented that the Government has not been able to prepare these regulations on time and has asked for more and more effective means for the proper control of this equality obligation.

Despite the absence of a registry of equality plans, that of collective agreements (Regcon) has 714 agreements signed with an annexed equality plan.

Of these, 60%, a total of 431, have been registered in the last year.

Sources of the employer, have assured Efe that large companies are already doing their homework regarding equality plans, although there is no census not being monitored.

In the case of SMEs, which will begin to be affected by this obligation as of March, the CEOE assures that it would make their work much easier if there were "simple and understandable" guidelines for this.