The Chamber supports increasing pay transparency, but clearer rules are needed
The Chamber of Commerce submitted an opinion to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications on the draft act amending the Employment Contracts Act and related acts, which partially transposes the European Parliament and Council directive on pay transparency. The Chamber supports the general objective of the draft act to increase pay transparency and ensure equal pay for women and men for equal work, but considers that the provisions and the explanatory memorandum need to be clarified.
The method of providing pay information needs to be clarified
In the Chamber’s view, the wording of the draft act may leave room for interpretation as to how an employer must provide a job applicant with information on salary or the salary range. According to the draft act, the information must primarily be provided in the job advertisement or in another manner before the job interview, but in the Chamber’s view, it is not sufficiently clear what is considered disclosure of pay information.
The Chamber therefore proposed supplementing the explanatory memorandum to the draft act and clarifying whether oral notification is sufficient or whether the notification must be given in writing. Clear guidelines would help employers apply the requirement correctly and reduce potential disputes.
The effect of pay confidentiality agreements must be understandable
According to the draft act, employers will no longer be allowed to prevent employees from disclosing the amount of their salary. In the Chamber’s view, a practical question may arise as to what happens to existing employment contracts and other agreements, such as agreements on the protection of trade secrets, under which employees are prohibited from disclosing their salary.
To avoid confusion, the Chamber considers that the explanatory memorandum to the draft act should be supplemented with an explanation clearly stating that when the draft act enters into force, existing provisions concerning the confidentiality of pay will become void.
The Pay Mirror must remain a voluntary tool
The Chamber supports the creation of the Pay Mirror, but considers it important that the voluntary nature of this service be clearly stated in the law. The law must also provide that access to gender pay gap indicators calculated through the Pay Mirror is granted only to the relevant employer or their authorised representative, and that third parties do not have access to this data. This is important for both legal clarity and employers’ trust.
In the Chamber’s view, it is important that Pay Mirror indicators do not become default evidence in labour disputes or in proceedings conducted by the Commissioner when comparing the same or work of equal value, and that they do not thereby impose on employers an obligation to prove, using the Pay Mirror, that discrimination has not occurred. Since the Pay Mirror is a statistical generalisation that employers themselves do not substantively control, it cannot serve as a basis for comparing specific jobs.