EPSU Equal Pay Survey

EPSU Equal Pay Survey

EPSU-ETUI Equal Pay Seminar16-18 November 2011

Congress resolutions 2009• Equal pay 1 – reinforcement of 2002 Executive Committee

resolution to close gender pay gap – five-year target changed from range of between two and five percentage points to five percentage points in five years

• Equal pay 2 – address the problem that pay (for both men and women) tends to be lower in sectors where women form the majority of the workforce – resolution proposed by Vision (formerly SKTF) Sweden

• 2007 gender pay gap survey to assess progress with 2002 resolution found only a minority of affiliates could provide data for the period and only four had seen the gender pay gap close by between two and five percentage points

EPSU-ETUI Equal Pay Seminar 16-18 November 20112

2010 EPSU gender pay gap survey• Simple questionnaire (11 questions) translated into 16

languages with respondents able to reply in national language(s)

• Run over an 7-8 month period (February-September/October) with regular reminders – promoted at the Spring round of standing committee meetings and reported back at the Autumn round of meetings

• 47 responses from 27 countries (EPSU has over 270 affiliates in 48 countries)

• Several responses simply stated that the gender pay gap was not an issue – at least one revised this response when concept of gender pay gap was explained to them


Gender pay gap• Still only 11 respondents were able to provide a specific figure

for the gender pay gap:

Country Pay gap % Sector YearArmenia 27.8 HSS 2008Czech Republic 28.8 HSS 2008Finland 15.9 Public 2009France 27.5 Public not statedGermany 11.0 Municipal 2009Iceland 27.0 Public 2007Lithuania 9.2 Public 2009Netherlands 12.0 Public 2006Norway 7.9 Municipal 2009Spain 17.0 Public not statedUK 16.0 State 2009


Availability of data• Contrast between agreements on provision of detailed

statistics in Sweden and Finland, for example, with refusal of employers to co-operate in France (private health) and Estonia (state and municipal)

• Also very detailed analyses carried out by wages commissions in Norway and Denmark

Other questions• Survey then focused on number of key factors seen as

important in reducing gender pay gap: occupational segregation, part-time work, transparency of pay systems, responses to low pay, training and promotion, impact of maternity leave, childcare, outsourcing and flexibility of working time


Occupational segregation• Structural problem that needs long-term response but

initiatives aiming at higher pay increases for occupations/sectors dominated by women are important

• Also initiatives to encourage women into different occupations – needs to involve educational institutions and employers but trade unions can be part of this (FNEM-FO in energy sector in France, Fire Brigages Union in UK)


Part-time work• Different approaches –

• in Denmark, Norway and Germany emphasis is more on providing full-time employment opportunities to those in part-time work

• in UK more about ensuring that part-time workers are not discriminated against in terms of pay structure and that senior posts are also available on a part-time or job-share basis


Transparency of pay systems• Initiatives involving job evaluation (free of gender

bias) in the Netherlands (health service) and UK (health service and local government) – Dutch system involved giving more weight to caring tasks in relation to management duties

• Not necessarily discriminatory but need to monitor in particular payments that are awarded on the basis of management discretion – local pay, performance-related pay.


Higher pay increases for lower paid/sectors dominated by women

• These are not targeted just at women, of course, but an increase in the lowest pay rates will tend to benefit more women than men – flat-rate elements in recent public sector agreements in Germany and Austria, abolition of lowest pay grades in Czech health sector


Training and promotion• Making training opportunities available for all,

particularly, the low/unskilled – Austrian private health sector – training for cleaners if they want to move into care professions – but effort needed to ensure that these workers take up the opportunities – often those already skilled who take up training

• Initiatives in some sectors, eg health in Moldova, to improve proportion of women in senior positions


Impact of maternity and parental leave• Breaks in length of service can have impact on career

progression and pay – agreements and legislation in a number of countries tries to reduce this – in municipal sector in Norway employees continue to move up pay scale while on paid and unpaid maternity leave – also in Czech Republic; in Austrian public sector employees have right to participate in training and education while on leave to maintain level of skills and qualifications; ensuring men take their full paternity/parental leave entitlement is also important and taken up in French energy sector


Availability of childcare• Can make a significant difference to possibility for

women maintain career progression and return to work after maternity leave but survey found very limited help with childcare in most countries, with exception of state provision in Nordic countries


Outsourcing• Low-paying jobs (cleaning, catering) often the main

target of outsourcing and so can predominantly affect women – can actually have the effect of reducing the gender pay gap in the public sector as takes more low-paid women into private sector

• Attempts by unions in Austria to improve pay in outsourced activities and unions in Romania negotiated agreements to protect pay of outsourced workers

• Lower minimum rates in Germany public sector agreement allowed more “insourcing” , although with consequence that more workers are now on the lowest pay grades


Flexible working hours• Flexibility in working time can help workers who have

caring responsibilities for children or sick or elderly relatives – might mean the difference between opting for a part-time or full-time job, for example – Danish state sector has flexible start and finish times making it easier to organise picking children up from childcare/school; Moldova – two-hour reduction in working day (without loss of pay) for mothers of children aged under three


Need to update survey• Important to update survey each year in lead up to

Congress 2014• Need for more data in order to assess what is

happening to the gender pay gap in each sector• initial response to first call for updates this year was

very low


EPSU Equal Pay Survey

Documents

Transcript of EPSU Equal Pay Survey