Trinczek, Rainer

On 18 July 2007, the European Commission [1] published a Communication on gender-based pay disparities in the EU, entitled Tackling the pay gap between women and men (117Kb PDF) [2]. The Communication outlines analysis and policy on the matter, and includes an extensive annex including remarks on the legal framework, the methodology used in measuring the pay gap, and some statistics. [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/european-commission [2] http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/news/2007/jul/genderpaygap_en.pdf

The Foundation project ‘Attractive workplace for all: A contribution to the Lisbon Strategy at company level’ aims at identifying pioneer company practices, policies and agreements and showing how the Lisbon strategy is being implemented on the ground at company level. Examples of innovative company practice were gathered from several Member States. In this report, case examples for Germany are organised under the following six thematic headings: fostering employability; increasing labour market participation of underemployed groups; integration into the labour market of people at risk of exclusion; make work pay, make work attractive; towards a balanced flexibility; and business creation and entrepreneurship.

Statutory minimum wage systems are widespread in the EU: 20 of the 27 EU Member States have a national minimum wage. Only Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy and Sweden do not rely on statutory minimum wages; in those countries, collective agreements are the main mechanism used for regulating low pay (‘Minimum wages in Europe’, TN0507101S [1]). [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/erm/comparative-information/minimum-wages-in-europe

‘Decent work’ is a term which was originally coined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) [1] in a report [2] published in June 1999. For the ILO, decent work lies at the ‘heart of social progress’ and has thus become one of its major strategic policy concepts (see ILO declaration [3] on decent work). The European Commission has always taken the view that the ILO’s decent work agenda shares a number of common grounds with the European social model [4] and the European Social Policy Agenda [5]. [1] http://www.ilo.org/ [2] http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm [3] http://www.ilo.org/public/english/decent.htm [4] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/european-social-model [5] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/social-policy-agenda