ETF voices concerns over missing Pay Transparency Directive

12 Jan 2021

Today, the ETF wrote to European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen today to share growing concerns over her unfulfilled promise to introduce ‘binding pay transparency measures’ within 100 days of entering office. The promise of binding pay transparency measures made a brief appearance during Equal Pay Day in November 2020, but they have since disappeared from the Commission’s legislative calendar and have not yet reappeared.

Further delay could have far-reaching consequences on women transport workers and women workers alike. A recent ETF survey of around 3,000 women transport workers from across Europe revealed that nearly one in three think that they have fewer opportunities to advance in their current workplace than their male colleagues, and found that 35% of the respondents were unhappy with the wage levels for their work. Addressing this issue and tackling pay inequality depends on a pay transparency directive that will ban the pay secrecy clauses and tackles the root causes of inequalities and undervaluing of work.

In this vein, the ETF and its affiliates join the European Trade Union Confederation in calling on the European Commission to swiftly introduce binding pay transparency measures.

To further delay the EU Pay Transparency Directive would be a betrayal of women transport workers and the millions of women who disproportionately work in jobs that put them on the frontline of this crisis.

The letter can be downloaded at your right.