Collective bargaining agreement (CBA) 25ter on equal pay for male and female workers was concluded by the National Labour Council on 9 July 2008. This new version of CBA 25 essentially aims at aligning it with the evolution of European and Belgian legislation.
The most important changes can be summarised as follows:
- The equal pay principle applies not only to similar work but also to work of a similar value.
- In order to bar discriminatory job evaluation systems, industries and companies should test the gender neutrality of their job evaluation systems and remuneration classifications and alter them if necessary.
- The definition of pay has been clarified. The commentary to CBA n° 25 defines in greater details the notion of equal treatment of men and women with regard to complementary social security regimes such as, in particular, additional pensions.
An important practical consequence of the abovementioned updates is that Work Regulations need to be updated with the new version of the CBA (which must always be attached to the work regulations).
However, practical experience shows that this necessary requirement still needs to be carried out by a number of companies. It should be noted that the standard procedure for altering the current Work Regulations does not apply to this change. The most recent version of the CBA must be displayed and attached to the Work Regulations kept at the work place. All workers should also receive a copy of the updated CBA.
