Agreements

Agreements are the outcome of collective bargaining and social dialogue processes. Social partners are encouraged to negotiate and conclude collective agreements  that can then be implemented at European, national, regional, sectoral or company level.  Increasingly Union labour laws are shaped by agreements that the parties voluntarily enter into and by soft law mechanisms.

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Research report
New

15 December 2025

Equal value, equal pay: Concepts, mechanisms and implementation towards gender pay equity
Christine Aumayr-Pintar,
Marianna Baggio
This report presents an in-depth compilation of evidence and analysis on how the EU’s principle of equal pay for the same work and work of equal value can be implemented in practice, with a particular focus on work of equal value – thus, pay equity. According to this principle, when two jobs can be regarded as equivalent in terms of skills, effort, responsibilities and working conditions, they should be remunerated equally. But how can such equivalence be established?
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Eurofound research paper

18 November 2025

Taking stock: Further experiences in gender pay transparency implementation and effectiveness
Christine Aumayr-Pintar,
Marianna Baggio
Despite decades of policy efforts, the gender pay gap in the EU, while slowly decreasing, is still persistent. In 2023, the Pay Transparency Directive was adopted, with the intent of advancing existing national approaches by mandating comprehensive transparency instruments, expanding reporting requirements, reinvigorating the ‘work of equal value’ principle, and shifting the burden of proof from workers to employers in discrimination cases, among the most significant developments.
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Research report
Forthcoming

December 2025

Collective bargaining beyond pay: An analysis of collective agreements in selected low-paid sectors
Mária Sedláková

This report analyses and compares the content of 94 collective agreements in three low-paid sectors – manufacture of food, leather, textiles and clothes; residential and social care; and retail – across 11 EU Member States and Norway. The report examines how collective bargaining regulates working conditions beyond wages and how these topics have evolved between 2015 and 2022. The findings show that collective agreements improve the job quality of workers in low-paid sectors beyond their pay. In addition to securing higher earnings, through additional bonuses and allowances for example, agreements also provide non-monetary benefits and opportunities for career advancement. The report finds that collective agreements focus increasingly on the well-being of employees, work–life balance or special protection for both younger and older workers.

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Experts on Agreements

Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.

Mária Sedláková

Research officer
Working life research

Mária Sedláková is a research officer in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She is responsible for drafting overview reports for sectoral representativeness studies, management and quality control of national reporting on industrial relations, social dialogue and working life, and development of a project on collective bargaining beyond pay. Before joining Eurofound, she worked as a technical research officer within the Governance and Tripartism Department at the International Labour Organization in Geneva on the Social Dialogue Flagship Report 2022. She also worked as a researcher at the Central European Labour Studies Institute in Bratislava (2013–2020), focusing on social dialogue, collective bargaining, working conditions and sociology of work. Maria holds an MA in Political Science with specialisation in Comparative European Politics from Central European University.

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Christine Aumayr-Pintar

Senior research manager
Working life research

Christine Aumayr-Pintar is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She coordinates Eurofound’s research on social dialogue and industrial relations and oversees the Network of Eurofound Correspondents (NEC). Her primary research expertise – approached from a comparative EU-wide standpoint – centres on minimum wages, collectively negotiated pay and gender pay transparency. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2009 she was a labour markets and regional economics researcher at Joanneum Research in Austria. She earned a Master's degree in Economics and a PhD in Social Science/Economics having studied economics in Graz, Vienna and Jönköping.

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Industrial relations and social dialogue
Industrial relations and social dialogue is one of Eurofound's main operational activities for its 2025–2028 programming period. Building on the past 50 years of research, Eurofound continues to function as a centre of expertise for monitoring and analysing developments in industrial relations and social dialogue at European and national levels and promoting dialogue between management and labour.
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