Progress needed on gender pay gap before Dáil ends
The Government is being urged to complete work on new employment legislation, including the Gender Pay Gap Information Bill before a general election is called.
CIPD Ireland, the representative body for human resource workers is demanding that two laws in particular should be included in the final list of topics to be addressed in the lifetime of the current Dáil.
They believe legislation to narrow Ireland’s Gender Pay Gap should have been prioritised last Autumn, while the Payment of Wages Bill has yet to be published.
The Gender Pay Gap Information Bill will require employers to publish information relating to the gender pay gap among their employees and, where there is a gap, to explain the measures being taken to reduce it.
The Payment of Wages Bill will ensure that workers' tips and gratuities cannot be used to ‘make-up’ or satisfy a person’s contractual wages.
Director of CIPD Ireland Mary Connaughton said it is now crucial the government gets the Gender Pay Gap Information Bill passed and enacted without further delay.
"Despite positive steps in early 2019, the legislation has not progressed and the consultation on the necessary regulations has not commenced," she said.
On the Payment of Wages Bill, Ms Connaughton said:
This vital legislation will force employers to clearly display their policy on how tips, gratuities and service charges are distributed to employees and ensure that they cannot be used to make up contractual rates of pay.
"Both of these pieces of legislation will have real and tangible benefits in the lives of workers in Ireland and they must be a priority in the final weeks of this Dail - we would urge the Taoiseach to include these on his final list of priorities."
Mary Connaughton’s comments come as her CIPD colleagues in the UK yesterday marked ‘High Pay Day’, the day by which the average FTSE 100 CEO will already have earned what it will take the average worker the rest of the year to earn.
As of this year, large UK employers are obliged to report on CEO pay ratios.
CIPD Ireland said it wants to see Ireland’s next government step up requirements surrounding the reporting of CEO pay ratios, and said it would also set a good example for companies to exercise constraint in setting executive pay.
