In connection with the Equal Pay Day that is marked on February 22, Parliament will examine a bill to amend normative documents concerning remuneration, such as the Labor Code and the law to ensure equal pays for women and men, IPN reports.

The salaries of women in Moldova are by 14% lower than those of men. “This bill, as a concept, is designed to put right an injustice, a gender-based social inequity – unequal pay between men and women,” bill sponsor Doina Gherman, head of the Parliament’s commission on foreign policy, stated in public consultations on the given draft law staged by the commission on social protection, health and family.

“The most serious is the fact that discrepancies in the sectors where the salaries are higher increase significantly,” said the MP, noting the gap widens yearly. In the IT sector, the pay gap between men and women is of 38% on average. In finance and insurance, the gap is of 44%. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the gender pay gap is of over 14,000 lei and this leads to a difference of about 5,000 lei in pensions.

Andrei Brighidin, of the Council for the Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination, said that the Council so far didn’t receive many complains on the issue as there is no transparency in the pay system, while a non-transparent system is by definition discriminatory, as the Court of Justice of the European Union noted. In Moldova, the salary is confidential and the relative pay grades at units are not made public.

Vladislav Kaminski, of the National Confederation of Employers, drew attention to the fact that some of the provisions of the proposed bill repeat existing provisions and parallelism is this way promoted. “The same norm introduced into several laws does not become better. It is ultimately the same norm. It is enough to introduce it into one law,” stated Vladislav Kaminski, noting the obligation for the administration of a company not to reveal details about the salary to third persons, at the request of the employee, should be kept.

PAS MP Radu Marian, who is a member of the commission on budget, economy and finance, said the employer is obliged to ensure equal pay for employees doing equal work. “The definition is rather wide and interpretative. The equal pay, nature of work and working conditions can be interpreted differently,” stated the MP.

At the end of the discussion, Doina Gherman noted that the gender pay gap is not only due to the fact that men work in sectors where pays are higher. “Inequality exists and starts from the day the person is employed. It goes to the negotiation power. Women are discriminated because they tend to ask for a smaller salary than men, while employers profit from this,” explained the MP, noting such a practice should be ended.