Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2007, published 97th ILC session (2008)

1. Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. The principle of equal remuneration in national legislation. Recalling its previous comments recommending that the Government consider giving full legislative expression in the Labour Code to the principle of equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value, the Committee notes that section 17 of the Law on Ensuring Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Women and Men 2006, requires the employer to ensure equal pay for men and women for work involving equal skills and working conditions.

2. The Committee notes that the new equal remuneration provisions constitute progress in two ways: (1) they assign responsibility to the employer to ensure equal remuneration; and (2) they appear to allow for comparison of remuneration received by men and women performing different jobs, as long as they involve equal skills and working conditions, thus taking the content of the job as the point of departure for comparing levels of remuneration.

3. However, the Committee also notes that by referring to equal skills and working conditions rather than to the broader notion of work of equal value, the new provisions appear to be more restrictive than the principle of equal remuneration of the Convention. The Committee recalls that a job performed by a man and a woman may involve different skills and working conditions, but may nevertheless be of equal value and thus would have to be remunerated at an equal level. Further, linking the right to equal remuneration for men and women to two specific factors for comparison (skills, working conditions), the new provisions may have the effect of discouraging or even excluding objective job evaluation on the basis of a wider range of criteria, which is crucial in order to eliminate effectively discriminatory undervaluation of jobs traditionally performed by women.  In addition to skills and working conditions, factors such as effort and responsibility are important and widely used criteria for objective evaluation of jobs, as set out in the Committee’s 2006 general observation on this matter.

4. The Committee hopes that the Government will continue to make efforts to review and strengthen its legislation to apply the Convention and asks the Government to consider further strengthening the legislation by introducing provisions that would explicitly set out the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value, as contained in the Convention, and promote effectively objective job evaluation as a means of implementing the principle in practice. The Committee asks the Government to provide information in its next report on any measures taken in this regard, as well as information on the implementation of the equal remuneration provisions of section 17 of the Law on Ensuring Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Women and Men, including any relevant administrative or judicial decisions.

5. Articles 2(2)(c) and 4. Collective bargaining. The Committee notes that section 18 of the Law on Ensuring Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Women and Men 2006, provides that collective agreements at the different levels should include provisions which ensure equal rights and opportunities of women and men and that agreements should, inter alia, envisage the elimination of inequality in the remuneration of labour of men and women, wherever it exists. The Committee asks the Government to provide detailed information on the implementation of these provisions, including information on the specific measures taken to ensure that collective agreements promote equal remuneration for men and women in accordance with the Convention, as well as examples of relevant provisions of collective agreements.

The Committee is raising other points in a request addressed directly to the Government.