Equal pay and equal treatment at work (Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Recast Directive 2006/54)

AuthorMarlies Vegter
Pages21-33
21
4Equal pay and equal treatment at work (Article 157 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Recast Directive 2006/54)
4.1General (legal) context
4.1.1Surveys on the gender pay gap and the difficulties of realising to equal pay
Three reports have been published by the NIHR on pay differences within general
hospitals, universities of applied sciences and insurance companies. The NIHR analysed
the pay of men and women within these institutions and concluded that there were
considerable gaps to the disadvantage of women. According to the NIHR, these gaps were
to a large extent due to factors such as attaching insufficient weight toprevious work
experience, determining the salary on the last salary earned elsewhere, basing the salary
on negotiations, granting extra benefits because an employee had reached the maximum
of his/her scale, or granting a higher salary because of shortage in the labour market.58
Research into pay differences between men and women is also carried out on a regular
basis by the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS). The last report of the CBS dates from
November 2018 and describes the situation in 2016 and the developments in relation to
the previous years (2008-2016).59The CBS found that pay differences have diminished
over this period, but that there is a considerable difference between the public and the
private sector. The gender pay gap was 16 % in the public sector in 2008 and 8 % in
2016. In the private sector the gender pay gap was 22 % in 2008 and 19 % in 2016. If
these gaps are corrected for factors such as number of hours worked, education, etc.,
differences of 5 % in the public sector and 7 % in the private sector remain.
The CBS did further research into the causes of the unadjusted pay gap in the private
sector. It found that the four main causes are: (1) age; (2) position in the household; (3)
origin; and (4) type of employee. According to the CBS, employees earn more as they
grow older, but for men this advantage is greater than for women. Employees who are
part of a household with a partner and one or more children earn more than employees in
other types of household, but here also the advantage is greater for men than for women.
In respect of (3) the CBS found that people with a Dutch background earn more than
people from other backgrounds. This factor is more important for male employees than
for female, but it can still account for part of the pay gap, because Dutch men in particular
earn relatively more. Finally, in regard to (4), ‘normal’ employees earn more than
employees with flexible contracts (on-call workers, workers who are posted by an agency,
payrollers)60 and since more men than women have regular contracts, this also explains
part of the difference.61
The CBS did not write about the obstacles for unequal pay nor about possible remedies.
58 Commissie Gelijke Behandeling (2011), Gelijke beloning van mannen en vrouwen bij de algemene
ziekenhuizen in Nederland (Equal pay for men and women in general hospitals in the Netherlands), Utrecht,
2011, available at https://www.mensenrechten.nl/nl/publicatie/9898; College voor de Rechten van de
Mens, Verdient een man meer? Gelijke beloning van mannen en vrouwen bij hogescholen (Does a man earn
more? Equal pay for men and women within universities of applied sciences), Utrecht, 2016, available at
https://www.mensenrechten.nl/nl/publicatie/36318; College voor de Rechten van de Mens, Rapport Gelijke
beloning verzekerd? (Report on Equal Pay Insured?), Utrecht, 2017, available at
https://www.mensenrechten.nl/nl/publicatie/38165.
59 Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (2018), Monitor loonverschillen mannen en vrouwen, 2016 (Monitor
Equal pay differences between men and women, 2016), November 2018, available at:
https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/maatwerk/2018/47/monitor-loonverschillen-mannen-en-vrouwen-2016.
60 In this context payrolling is the provision of workers to a customer where the workers have been recruited
by the customer but are employees of the supplier providing the payroll services.
61In the author’s view these conclusions are not very helpful. They merely state that in various situations
women nearly always tend to earn less than men, but it is not clear why this is the case.

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