Spain — Gender Equality — New obligations for Companies

The object of this post is the analysis of the new obligations that RDL 6/2019 establishes, in terms of Gender Equality, for all types of companies (regardless the number of workers they have) and, specifically, for those companies that have 50 or more workers.

The main novelty we find in this respect lies in the obligation, for companies with 50 or more workers, to implement an Equality in Business Plan (EBP), in accordance with the provisions of articles 45 and related of the LOIEMH.

Regarding the content and the conditions of implementation of the EBP, we find the following novelties:

• The subjects and minimum content that all EBP must have are listed exhaustively.
• An analysis of the female underrepresentation in the Company is introduced, as a matter that the EBP must contain.
• The diagnosis that the Company must make prior to the preparation of the EBP must be negotiated with the legal representative of the workers.
• A Register of EBP for companies is created, in which all the EBP implemented in the Companies must be registered, regardless of the number of workers they have.

On the other hand, RDL 6/2019 gives a new wording to Article 28 of the Workers’ Statute (WS), which includes the obligation of the Company to comply with the requirement of equal pay for men and women, establishing a series of measures and obligations in charge of the Companies, in order to ensure the effective fulfillment of the salary equality between genders.

In particular, these new measures adopted in article 28 of the WS are:

• What is to be considered as «work of equal value» is specified, in order to facilitate a single concept and eliminate any doubt in this regard.
• Companies have the obligation to keep a Salary Register, with the average values ​​of salaries, salary supplements and extra-salary perceptions of their workforce, differentiated by sex and distributed by professional groups, professional categories or equal work positions value.
• The Salary Registry must be accessible to the legal representatives of the workers.
• In companies with 50 or more workers in which the average remuneration of workers of one sex is higher than the other by 25% or more, a justification for said difference must be included in the Salary Register, and must be certified that it is due to reasons unrelated to the sex of the workers.

The breach, by the Companies, of the obligations in matters of Gender Equality and, in particular, those related to the EBP and equal payment between men and women, may entail the imposition of important sanctions by the Labor Inspector and the “Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social”.