In the future money will no longer be a taboo topic in German companies. On 11 January, following years of quarreling, Families Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) finally succeeded in getting the coalition government to adopt the draft law ‘that aims to promote transparent remuneration systems’ (Gesetz zur Förderung der Transparenz von Entgeltstruktur). This new ‘compromise’ law introduces the employee’s right to information on salaries in companies employing more than 200 staff. Companies with more than 500 staff will now be ‘encouraged’ to implement measures that ensure and monitor gender pay equality and they will also have to regularly publish a remuneration report. This draft law affecting some 14 million employees will now go before the Bundestag.
An end to the taboo. First presented by the Families Minister in December 2015, the gender pay equality draft law (c.f. articles No. 9410 and No. 9858) has been gathering dust in the Federal Chancellery. The Social Democrat Minister claims the law has met with massive opposition because it is breaking the longstanding taboo over Germans not speaking about money. Nonetheless the Minister insists that pushing forward with transparent wage systems within companies is the only way to narrow a...
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