The National Court has condemned the company ASPY PREVENCIÓN to pay more than 80,000 euro to the legal representation of its staff (RLT) for failing to comply with the obligation to approve an internal equality plan.
In addition, it will be obliged to pay greater compensation to the unions for each day it takes to approve the final equality plan, amounting to an additional 144.68 euro per day.
“The proposed compensation formula aims to adapt the sanction amount to the severity of the non-compliance and, above all, accelerate the implementation of the Plan, which is the ultimate objective of the lawsuit filed,” says Esther Comas, defence lawyer for the RLT.
The ruling considers that the fundamental right to freedom of association has been violated in the face of “inadmissible” and “lack of justification” business conduct to avoid, for more than three years, providing the staff representatives with the information necessary to prepare the prior diagnosis that must be made to allow the effective development of an Equality Plan.
The lawyer states that the majority of companies are still evading the obligation to actively combat the existence of “discriminatory practices” within their organisations. And that represents, in her opinion, “a violation of the rights of its workers, since they are being deprived of an element of protection that they should be able to enjoy.”
Among other breaches, the ruling of the National Court considers it proven that throughout these three years, and “despite the constant warnings of the RLT”, the company failed to comply with the duty to provide its counterpart in the negotiation with updated information and truthful that would allow verifying the application of the principle of remuneration transparency through “remuneration records, the remuneration audit and the job evaluation system in the professional classification”.
“We hope that rulings such as the one handed down by the National Court will serve to spread awareness among companies regarding the obligation to act in good faith when implementing an Equality Plan that contributes to deactivating the risk of discrimination for members of staff,” argues Comas.
Businesses with more than 50 employees and other SMEs – regardless of the size of their staff – are required from 2022 to have an equality plan in their business, a set of measures that the company undertakes to guarantee equality among all workers.
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