Workplace equality: equality plans and equal leave for both parents

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1. Companies with 50 or more workers must draw up and apply an equality plan, negotiated with worker representatives, and register it in a new Register of Company Equality Plans. The obligation applies gradually: one year for companies with more than 150 workers, two years for those with more than 100, and three years for those with 50 to 100.
2. The Workers' Statute is reformed to guarantee equal pay for work of equal value. Companies must keep a salary register broken down by sex and, if the gap between sexes exceeds 25 percent, justify in writing that it is not related to gender.
3. Birth, adoption and foster care leave is equalized for both parents at 16 weeks, six of them mandatory and immediately after the birth or the court decision. The equalization is gradual: in 2019 the other parent gets 8 weeks, in 2020, 12, and full equality is reached in 2021. Similar rules apply to public employees.
4. Social Security adapts its benefits to the new leave rights and creates a new benefit for shared responsibility in infant care, for when both parents each reduce their workday by half an hour between the child's 9th and 12th month. It also restores public funding of the special agreement contributions of non-professional caregivers of dependent people.
5. Self-employed workers may suspend their activity and receive benefits in cases of birth, infant care, risk during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and adoption or foster care. They also get a 100 percent rebate on their self-employment contribution during those periods, if they last at least one month.
6. Failing to meet equality plan and equality measure obligations becomes a punishable offense for companies. The rule takes effect the day after its publication in the Official State Gazette, except for some measures that take effect on the first day of the following month.

Who it affects

• Companies with 50 or more workers: They must draw up an equality plan, keep a salary register and register the plan publicly; otherwise they commit a punishable offense.
• Employees: They gain rights to equal pay, work-life balance and equal 16-week leave for birth or adoption for both parents.
• Public employees: Equivalent leave applies to them for birth, adoption, foster care and breastfeeding.
• Self-employed workers: They may suspend their activity, receive benefits and get contribution rebates in birth, care and risk situations.
• Non-professional caregivers of dependent people: The State assumes payment of their Social Security special agreement contributions.

Words worth knowing

Plan de igualdad (equality plan)

A set of measures a company takes to remove inequalities between women and men, after a prior diagnosis.

Trabajo de igual valor (work of equal value)

Two jobs that, though different, require equivalent duties, training and conditions, and must therefore be paid the same.

Registro salarial (salary register)

A document with the average salaries of the workforce, broken down by sex and by job or category.

Convenio especial (special agreement)

An arrangement for a person who is not working (for example, a caregiver) to voluntarily contribute to Social Security.

Real decreto-ley (royal decree-law)

A rule with the force of law that the Government may pass in situations of extraordinary and urgent need.

It summarizes the law as published in the BOE. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries