Geasy wages for men and women. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Ferda Ataman, wants to achieve this through stricter laws. On the occasion of Equal Pay Days on Tuesday, she called for a reform of the Pay Transparency Act in an interview with the editorial network Germany. Despite the law, it is still difficult for many women to specifically prove pay inequality, Ataman complained: “The right to information in the Pay Transparency Act only applies to larger companies with 200 or more employees – and there are too many loopholes.”
So it doesn’t make sense why women in a small company have no right to receive information about possible wage inequalities, but in larger companies they do. With the “further development” of the law announced in the coalition agreement, care must therefore be taken to ensure that the law will apply to all companies in the future. “This has to be improved,” Ataman demanded: “We must not leave women alone with this.”
The right to sue for associations mentioned in the coalition agreement is also overdue, she added: “I don’t understand the resistance to such a right to sue. A class action law would also make sense in other cases of discrimination and belongs in the General Equal Treatment Act.”
More lawsuits and sanctions
Any company that differentiates wages between the sexes is illegal. According to the Federal Statistical Office, women in Germany earn an average of 18 percent less than men. From Ataman’s point of view, more opportunities to sue could create more legal certainty for those affected – and sanction those employers who do not comply with the law.
“By law, unequal wages are discrimination,” Ataman emphasized: “Germany cannot afford to continue to pay women less in the 21st century. Despite progress in wage transparency in recent years, politicians must continue to take countermeasures.”
Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus also speaks out on equality between women and men. “We still live in the patriarchy that we have to say goodbye to,” said the Green politician to the “Tagesspiegel”. “For me, patriarchy is over when women are economically and politically equal, half of the power belongs to women, and gender-specific violence is not played down as an individual act, but is recognized and punished as a patriarchal pattern of thought and behavior.”
Paus was speaking ahead of Equal Pay Day on March 7th. The day draws attention to pay inequalities between men and women and the urgency of overcoming such conditions. Wednesday is International Women’s Day.