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Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. Measures to address the gender wage gap. The Committee notes the approval of the Strategic Plan for Equal Opportunities (2008–11), in which provision is made to examine the causes of the wage gap and which lays down specific measures to overcome it. With a view to fulfilling that objective, two protocols have been signed between the Ministry of Equality and the Ministry of Labour and Immigration: a protocol for monitoring fraud in the award of temporary contracts and the misuse of part-time contracts in sectors where women are overrepresented, and a protocol of cooperation with the Directorate-General of Labour Inspection for monitoring situations involving wage discrimination and reducing the wage gap. Under the latter protocol, the labour inspectorate has carried out controls, referred to below, the results of which will be communicated to the Ministry for Equality, which will analyse the existing wage gap and the sectors in which this is most pronounced. The Ministry for Equality and the Autonomous Communities has awarded grants to small and medium-sized enterprises for use in the formulation and implementation of equality plans. The Committee also notes the adoption of Royal Decree No. 713/2010 of 28 May 2010, which establishes the obligation to provide information, whenever a new collective agreement is signed, on the pay structure and measures adopted to promote equality with regard to wages. A further development has been the introduction of the “badge of equality” (Royal Decree No. 1615/2009), which recognizes and promotes measures for achieving equality adopted by enterprises and which, in order to be awarded, takes account of gender balance in decision-making posts, in access to posts of responsibility, adoption of equality plans, disaggregation by sex of data relating to pay and the application of systems and criteria relating to occupational classification and pay which enable situations involving discrimination to be eliminated or prevented. A total of 602 enterprises have applied to be awarded the badge, which may be used for commercial and advertising purposes. The Government states that in 2008 women were paid on average 84 per cent of the wage paid to men. This wage gap of 16 per cent was established on the basis of data published in the wage structure survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics. While noting the measures taken by the Government to promote gender equality in pay, the Committee requests the Government to continue to supply information on the impact of these measures and on the methods used to measure the gender wage gap.

Article 4. Social partners. The Committee notes that in 2008 the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations (CEOE), the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CEPIME), the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) and the General Union of Workers (UTT) signed an extension to the 2007 inter-confederation agreement for collective bargaining, which establishes as a criterion the need to remove differences in pay levels and highlights the usefulness of systems for the evaluation of jobs. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the application of this agreement in practice and its impact on the collective agreements that have been signed.

Labour inspection. The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government on cases involving violations of the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value and the penalties imposed on 12 enterprises (five fines and seven formal notices) by the labour inspectorate for discrimination on the basis of gender in the catering, commerce, cleaning, steel and textiles sectors. The Committee requests the Government to continue to supply information on the measures taken by the labour inspectorate and their impact on reducing the wage gap.