Reducing the gender pay gap – implementing the equal pay resolutions from the 2009 EPSU Congress

Gender pay gap questionnaire, February 2010

The gender pay gap was discussed at each of the last meetings of the Local and Regional Government (LRG), National and European Administration (NEA) and Health and Social Services (HSS) Committees. At the LRG and NEA meetings the discussion was in the context of developing a Pay Checklist that focuses on the various elements that make up a fair pay system. In the HSS meeting the debate was partly a follow-up to the Committee’s response to the report on the gender pay gap in the care sector by Jane Pillinger.

The issue of pay equality is also a priority in EPSU’s work plan over the next five years following the two resolutions agreed at the Congress last June. The resolutions not only committed EPSU and its affiliates to work towards closing the gender pay gap by five percentage points (http://www.epsu.org/a/5534) but also to investigate how they could deal with the fact that sectors and occupations dominated by women tend to have lower pay (for both men and women) than those where men form the majority of workers (http://www.epsu.org/a/5543).

The three standing committee meetings agreed that it is important to monitor progress on equal pay and in particular to establish the extent of the pay gap that each affiliate is facing in its relevant sector, occupation or workplace – whichever of these is most relevant.

We need affiliates to answer the following questions in order to establish the current state of affairs and enable us to evaluate progress towards pay equality by the end of this year and then annually up to the next EPSU Congress in 2014.

A report on the responses will be made to each standing committee at their meetings in October 2010 and an overview of all responses will be discussed at EPSU’s collective bargaining conference in Brussels on 7-8 December 2010.

Gender pay gap questionnaire, February 2010 EN/FR/DE/SV/RU/CS/IT/ES/EL/PT/FI/DA/RO/BG/HU/TR) }

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