Czech Ombudswoman Calls on Firms to Make Male, Female Salaries Public

Employers with a higher number of employees should be obliged to make public the information on the pay-gap between their male and female employees, Czech ombudswoman Anna Šabatová has said, adding that if they did not comply, they could be banned from public tenders.

Women in the Czech Republic receive on average 22 percent less pay than men. Šabatová explains why:

“One reason is that women never find out about certain [lucrative] jobs. Not only is it customary not to talk about money: in many companies it’s forbidden. Whereas in the past equal pay for equal work was what protests were all about, today that’s impossible because of the confidentiality clause. Companies oblige workers not to tell anyone how much they earn. Everyone is expected to negotiate their salary for themselves. As statistics show, that systematically puts women at a disadvantage. But women also need decent wages. Flowers they can buy for themselves.”

Women in the Czech Republic earn on average 80,000 crowns less per year than men do and the gap is wider in the Czech private sector than in the public sector. In the EU, on average women are paid 16 percent less than men, according to Eurostat.

Differences in the Czech Republic also persist in the representation of men and women in company management. Currently, only 7% of managers at Czech firms are women.

Author: red