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Ruling promotes gender pay gap
European Court of Justice's rules on maternity leave pay
Wake up ladies! “Women should look at how their income is structured and should also consider what kind of pension scheme they have,” says Amélie Leclercq, the regional coordinator for the International Federation of Business and Professional Women in Brussels.
On July 1 the European Court of Justice ruled – based on the 1992 Pregnant Workers Directive – that pregnant women transferred to another job “must be entitled to remuneration consisting of her basic monthly pay,” however, the court qualified its decision stating that companies would not have to pay out bonuses or allowances.
The ruling was based on a Finish and an Austrian case. Sanna Maria Parviainen, a Finnair chief flight attendant, sued her employer after she was moved to a lower paying ground job during pregnancy. Susanne Gassmayr, a junior hospital doctor, sued the Austrian Ministry for Science and Research for refusing to pay her allowance for on-call duty while she was pregnant and later during maternity leave.
“What was striking to me about the Finish case was that a major part of her income was made up of bonuses,” says Leclercq.
According to her this is a growing trend. Instead of paying employees one salary companies are offering them a lower base salaries with a package of supplementary payments in the form of bonuses and allowances.
Why? Supplementary payments are not taken into consideration when pension payments are calculated, so in the long run companies save big.
Income schemes that favor payment in the form of bonuses and allowances hit women harder than men, because women risk losing those supplements every time they go on maternity leave and again when they start collecting their pensions.
The court’s ruling doesn’t protect women from losing bonuses and allowances during pregnancy or maternity leave, so Leclercq says the onus is on women to protect themselves.
“When asking for a raise, women must ask for an increase in base salary and not just an increase in income. Unfortunately, they are not trained to know the difference.”
