two-thirds companies Does not comply with regulations in Spain equality. Although the law states that any company with 50 or more employees must have an equity plan duly registered with the business authority, only 33% of these companies officially comply with this requirement. According to the data provided by the department in question to the questions of El Periódico from the Prensa Ibérica group, there is evidence that a total of 10,600 documents were processed and accepted in the Ministry of Labor. With Security Social.
The absence of a registered equity scheme means that officials say two of these three companies are a counter protocol sexual harassmentwhether they have a pricing control that measures whether unfair salary difference between rankings or whether selection processes are discriminatory, etc. Since March 7, 2022, any company with 50 or more employees has an obligation to draw up an equity plan previously negotiated with its workers and sealed by the competent labor authority, i.e. the Ministry itself. or autonomous authorities.
The absence of the said equality plan is subject to sanctions by the Labor Inspectorate. these are released Between 751 euros and 7,500 euros, but can go up to 225 thousand euros its absence is due to the company’s clear will to conceal gender-based discrimination. For example, on March 8, 2022, the Ministry of Labor of Catalonia made public a proposal to sanction Mutua Universal of 91,000 euros to its detriment for the lack of an equality scheme, wage registration and a numerical wage gap of 22.8%. of their workers.
Statistics provided by the department headed by second vice president Yolanda Díaz show massive fraud among Spanish companies and confirm that the commitment of the business structure with legal obligations in terms of parity has not improved. And the regulations approved by the socialist Magdalena Valerio, the previous Minister of Labor, are repealed. emerging gradually until its maximum validity on March 7 last year. When only companies with 100 or more employees were required to have a registered equity plan, the rate of non-compliance was 2/3. Today, a year has passed and the dam has been increased to 50 workers, this ratio is maintained.
Attack on the Labor Inspectorate
The Labor Inspectorate has so far permissive attitude it leaves companies the scope to apply new regulations and limits themselves to formulating correction requirements rather than punishing them directly. However, according to the latest data on actions taken by the ‘labor police’, this alignment process has long since come to an end. And this is it The amount of sanctions imposed by investigators has tripled last year.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Labor to inquiries from El Periódico, in 2022 ‘labor police’ officers carried out a total of 4,788 actions across Spain regarding parity-related issues. Of these, one in four companies failed the investigators’ review and was recorded with a breach. All together, the Labor Party imposed sanctions worth a total of 2.58m euros, compared to 324,771 euros in 2021.
Commercial resistance to the Supreme Court
One of the reasons for the massive non-compliance with equality regulations is the business world’s resistance to complying with the regulations right from the start. And one of the key requirements of these specifications is that they have been pre-negotiated with the legal representatives of the workers. And in a country where mostly SMEs live, most companies do not have a union presence or a legally constituted works council.
When faced with such a situation, the law specifies that a commission sent from the majority unions must be responsible for negotiating the plan. Something read by big CEOE employers as an intervention in the inner life of companies and an excuse for CCOO and UGT to set foot in previously unorganized workplaces. So much so that this issue caused employers to disapprove of the rule when the Government negotiated it in social dialogue. And once upheld, the CEOE went so far as to file an appeal to the Supreme Court, which ultimately failed.