In 2019, Royal Decree Law 6/2019 on urgent measures to guarantee equal treatment and equal opportunities for women and men in employment and occupation established a series of deadlines that companies must be aware of:
- March 2020: obligation to implement an Equality Plan for companies with 150 or more employees.
- 7 March 2021: obligation to implement an Equality Plan for companies with between 101 and 150 employees.
- 2022: the obligation to implement an Equality Plan will extend to companies with 50 to 100 employees.
Written by Cyrielle Agut
Employment lawyer – Spanish, French and English.
What is the minimum content required for an equality plan?
The development and implementation of an equality plan within a company is defined as a structured set of measures aimed at achieving equal treatment and equal opportunities for women and men, and at eliminating discrimination on grounds of sex. Before adopting these measures, it is necessary to carry out a jointly negotiated situational assessment with, where applicable, the employees' legal representatives.
The equality plan must meet a minimum content requirement, following a negotiated assessment with employees' representatives, and must cover at least the following areas:
- Recruitment and hiring processes
- Professional classification
- Training
- Professional promotion
- Working conditions, including a pay audit covering women and men.
- Shared responsibility in exercising rights relating to personal, family and working life
- Female under-representation
- Remuneration
- Prevention of sexual harassment and harassment on grounds of sex.
The purpose of the plan is to set out the specific equality objectives to be achieved, the strategies and practices to be adopted in pursuit of those objectives, and the establishment of effective systems for monitoring and evaluating progress against the targets set.
For further information, we invite you to visit the following links, which contain all relevant details:
SALARY REGISTER: equal pay between men and women within the company.
Article 28 of the Workers' Statute and Articles 5 and 6 of Royal Decree 902/2020 on equal pay between men and women, establish the obligation to record salary data with the aim of verifying that equal remuneration exists between men and women within the company.
Pay equality exists where work of equal value is remunerated equally for men and women and, where a difference exists, there is an objective justification for it.
The salaries analysed are those paid in the previous calendar year; therefore, in 2021 the pay registers will contain information on salaries paid from January to December 2020.
From 14 April 2021, companies are required to maintain this pay register covering their entire workforce, regardless of the number of employees.
This register must be made available to the employees' legal representatives.
penalties for failure to implement an equality plan
Companies that fail to comply with the obligation to implement an Equality Plan or to maintain a pay register may face a serious or very serious financial penalty.
Specifically, Article 7.13 of the LISOS (Spanish Law on Social Order Infractions and Penalties) provides as follows:
"The following constitute serious infringements: [...]
13. Failure to comply with the obligations regarding equality plans and measures established by Organic Law 3/2007 of 22 March on effective equality between women and men, the Workers' Statute or the applicable collective bargaining agreement".
Therefore, under Article 40.1.b) of the LISOS (Spain's Law on Social Order Infringements and Penalties), failure to implement an equality plan by a company legally required to do so, or failure to comply with the obligation to maintain a pay register, may be sanctioned with a financial penalty of between €626 and €6,250.
If the Labour Inspectorate or Labour Authority has already notified the company of its obligation to have an equality plan in place, the amount of such fines may be multiplied, ranging from €6,251 to €187,515.
EQUALITY PLAN PRICING:
Check out this link for our pricing to develop an equality plan tailored to your company's needs.
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