The French are tackling a controversial law on equal pay head-on. The aim of the current long and complex legislative process is equal pay for men and women in France by 31 December 2010, and the prosecution of employers who don't comply.

The reality is that after 30 years of equal pay legislation in Europe, there is still a pay gap of on average 16 to 17 percent in the private sector and 12 percent in the public sector.  In France, the gender pay gap is currently 20 percent in the private sector.

"The French government have decided that people working in same company doing similar work have to be paid the same," says Robin Chater, Secretary General of the Federation of European Employers (FedEE)

"Of course, you can always go to court to complain if you find this isn't the case. However, the French believe that now the employer should take responsibility for this rather than the employee," says Chater.

The employer, not the employee, should be responsible for equal pay.

After the bill has passed, companies in France will have to carry out their own audits every year.  There will be acceptable and unacceptable criteria for pay differences, and unless companies can justify acceptable criteria they will have to give equal pay, says Chater.

Although Chater sees the French ruling as commendable, he has doubts about them being able to pull it off.

"Trying to iron out the problem by a set date is already a challenge. If you do something like this collectively it is more difficult, as well as being very time-consuming," he says.

"The French will also have to measure performance and work out the difference between legal and illegal appraisal processes," says Chater, who forecasts a ten percent increase in overall wage costs in France.

Another path, according to Chater, could have been to enable French employees to take equal pay cases to court more easily. The Irish system for instance, he says, has an equality commissioner where you can lodge a complaint first "without having to make a big thing of it."

The pressure is on

Difficult though it may be, Nadja Salson, Policy Officer for National Administration and Gender Equality for the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), feels the French have taken the correct route.

"From experience, in various member states there hasn't been much progress in reducing the pay gap between women and men without sanctions on employers. We support the French," she says.

"Even in Finland, one of the most progressive countries, along with Sweden, in terms of equal pay legislation, they have recently toughened up sanctions on employers because the legislation wasn't being implemented. It's the same in a lot of countries," says Salson.

EPSU are trying to develop preventive measures to help countries having to avoid resorting to sanctions, explains Salson.

The cost of closing of the gap

A common problem, she says, is that when you point to the pay gap, employers argue that there is not money to redress it.  However, countries can take a preventive approach and put some money aside for this.

Finland, for example, which has taken such an approach, with trade unions, employers and employee's representatives working to develop an action plan for equality in general, has also ear-marked some money in the public sector in case they find inequality in terms of wages so that they can pay for the difference, says Salson.

"EPSU favours the preventive and collective approach. If you have to resort to a court case so be it, but we don't think it is the best way of ensuring equality in the workplace," says Salson.

Whether it is an equal pay court case brought forwards by an employee or a fine imposed on a non-complying company, organisations risk loosing not only money but time in the process.

The path to equal pay is a long a complicated one, linked into other wider public policies such as child-care, care for the elderly, working time legislation, says Salson, who sees that making progress on gender equality can become a model for other groups who are discriminated against. But she doesn't see Europe reaching the end of the equal pay road before the end of the 21st Century.

"It will all depend on the willingness and commitment of employers and trade unions to make sure they have this as a priority on their agenda," she says.

February 2006

[Copyright Expatica 2006]

Subject: Equal pay in Europe, equal pay legislation, France and equal pay