Royal Decree 902/2020, of October 13, on equal pay between women and men.

The Spanish legal system includes the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in article 28 of the consolidated text of the Workers' Statute Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015, of October 23, understanding for jobs of equal value, those in which, the functions performed, the educational, professional or training conditions necessary for their performance, the factors strictly related to their development and the working conditions in which said activities are carried out. out, are equivalent. However, this matter has acquired great importance, especially in recent months, as a result of a series of regulatory updates in the field of Labor Law, which pursue the effectiveness and real guarantee of this principle in Spain.

Specifically, on October 13, 2020, two regulations were approved in this matter: on the one hand, Royal Decree 901/2020, which regulates equality plans; and on the other hand, Royal Decree 902/2020, on equal pay, which will come into force on April 14, 2021, with the aim of establishing a series of measures that make the right to equal treatment and equality effective. non-discrimination between men and women in the salary field.

What are the main new features introduced by Royal Decree 902/2020, of October 13, on equal pay between women and men?

Firstly, this standard includes the principle of remunerative transparency and equal remuneration, which must be applied by all companies and collective agreements, with the aim of facilitating the identification of possible discriminatory situations in the workplace. ? both direct and indirect? , by virtue of which, the performance of work of equal value is incorrectly remunerated based on the worker, with a lower salary, without there being objective causes to justify it.

For these purposes, as of the entry into force of Royal Decree 902/2020, all companies, regardless of their size and number of workers, will be required to have a remuneration record for their entire workforce? including management staff? , which must faithfully and up-to-date reflect the information related to the remuneration of its workers, broken down by sex and distributed according to the category, position or professional group to which each worker belongs, indicating:

• The average value of the base salaries received.


• Salary supplements.


• Extra-salary perceptions of the workforce.

Both workers and their legal representatives will have the possibility of accessing this record. However, the information provided to each of them will not be the same, since, although the legal representation of the workers will have access to the full content of the registry without limitations, the workers will only be able to consult the average of the percentage differences existing between the salaries of men and women.

Another novelty introduced by Royal Decree 902/2020 is that those companies obliged to develop an equality plan, that is, those that have 50 or more workers, must include a remuneration audit in it. , with the aim of obtaining the necessary information to verify whether a company's remuneration system respects the principle of equality between men and women in salary matters.

This audit entails a series of obligations for the company:

• A first phase of diagnosis of the remuneration situation in the company and the promotion system, in which a global assessment of each of the jobs is carried out, analyzing all the tasks and factors strictly linked to the development of work activity and the evaluation of other factors triggering the pay difference, as well as possible inequalities in terms of conciliation and co-responsibility in the company.


• A second phase in which the action plan will be established, with the aim of correcting the remuneration inequalities detected, setting the objectives, actions to follow, schedule and those responsible for its implementation and monitoring .

Likewise, companies that carry out remuneration audits must reflect in their remuneration records the averages of jobs of equal value in the company, distributed by sex and broken down according to professional category, as well as the corresponding justification when the average remuneration totals of one sex, a superior to the other, at least by twenty-five percent.

Finally, it is established that the company's remuneration information or the absence thereof may give rise to administrative and judicial actions, both individual and collective, including the application of sanctions that may apply in situations of salary discrimination, in accordance with the provisions provided for in the Law of Infractions and Sanctions of the Social Order, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 5/2000, of August 4, which classifies said discrimination as a very serious offense, which entails the application of high sanctions.