Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2005, published 95th ILC session (2006)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Iceland (Ratification: 1958)

1. Article 1 of the Convention. Work of equal value. The Committee notes with interest that the Supreme Court, for the first time, decided an equal pay case involving a comparison of jobs performed by women and men which were different in nature (Case No. 258/2004, decision of 20 January 2005). In this case, the female manager of the social affairs department of a municipality claimed compensation for pay discrimination under the Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men Act (96/2000), comparing her remuneration to that of an engineer employed by the same municipality. Relying on a job evaluation exercise that had assessed the two jobs with the same number of points, the Supreme Court considered that the plaintiff had advanced substantial arguments that the two jobs were so closely comparable that she had suffered discrimination, while the municipality did not succeed in demonstrating that difference in pay resulted from objective and relevant considerations. The Committee asks the Government to continue to provide information on the most relevant decisions of the courts and the Equal Status Complaints Committee on equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value.

2. Article 2. Collective agreements. The Committee recalls its previous request to the Government to indicate the measures taken to allow for the principle of equal pay for work of equal value to be implemented beyond the level of the same enterprise where wages are fixed at wider than enterprise level. In this regard, it notes from the Government’s report that emphasis was placed on eliminating the gender pay gap in the collective negotiations between the Government and the Confederation of University Graduates, which led to the conclusion of collective agreements between the Government and 24 graduates’ unions in January 2005. The Committee notes the Government’s statement that the introduction of a single salary schedule covering all the agreements is expected to eliminate possible "invisible" discrimination arising in relation to overtime payments and fringe benefits. The Committee also notes the establishment of a working group under the terms of a recent collective agreement between the State Treasury and the Union of Civil Servants with the task of collaborating to eliminate the gender pay gap. The Committee asks the Government to:

(a)  provide information on progress made in closing the gender wage gap through the application of collective agreements between the Government and the graduates’ unions referred to above, including the outcome of the planned study on the agreements’ impact on equal remuneration to be conducted by the Ministry of Finance;

(b)  inform the Committee of the activities carried out by the working group set up under the collective agreement between the State Treasury and the Union of Civil Servants, as well as the results achieved in narrowing the gender pay gap among the workers concerned; and

(c)  continue to provide information on any measures taken or envisaged to allow the principle of the Convention to be implemented beyond the level of the same enterprise where wages are fixed at wider than enterprise level.

3. Article 3. Objective job evaluation. The Committee notes the Government’s indication that the job evaluation project carried out by the City of Reykjavik and the Union of Local Authorities was still in progress. The Committee asks the Government to provide detailed information on the implementation and outcomes of this project in its next report, as well as on any other measures taken to promote objective job evaluation in the public and private sectors.

4. Part V of the report form. General appreciation of the application of the Convention. The Committee notes that, according to the report "Women and Men in Iceland 2004" by Statistic Island, women, on average, earned 62 per cent of men’s income in 2003. According to the Government’s report, women increased their wages by 6.3 per cent between the fourth quarters of 2003 and 2004, while men’s wages rose 4.8 per cent during the same period. However, the Committee notes with concern the Government’s indication that women earned a lower proportion of men’s salaries in 2004 than in 1998, when taking into account the increase of the number of hours worked by women. The Committee asks the Government to continue to provide detailed information, including statistical information and studies on the extent, nature and reasons of the pay differentials between men and women and the measures taken to address the causes of such pay differentials. Please also provide information on the implementation of the equal pay project under the National Action Plan on gender equality adopted by Parliament in April 2004.