The Equal Pay Act significantly strengthens the position of employees in monitoring the fairness of their remuneration and checking the gender pay gap. The new legislation removes the existing information asymmetry, whereby employees often lacked access to data on their colleagues' pay levels, which practically prevented them from identifying discriminatory practices and defending themselves effectively. The right to remuneration information now belongs to all employees regardless of the size of their employer, making it a universal tool for ensuring wage fairness. Employees thus gain real power to check whether their remuneration truly corresponds to the value of the work performed and whether the remuneration criteria applied are objective and gender-neutral.
An employee can request in writing:
- Information on the personal reward level.
- Data on the average level of remuneration colleagues performing work of equal value, broken down by gender.
- Additional and reasoned explanation to the provided data, to which the employer must respond within 30 days.
The key advantage is ban on wage secrecy – the non-disclosure clause regarding one's own salary is from June 2026 invalid. This means that colleagues will now be able to talk openly about their pay.
Do not forget the new and important difference between wage and remuneration
Finally, here is one more important piece of information that may be key for many. This time, the legislator has left nothing to chance, and the difference in remuneration will not be derived from wages but from reward. Reward includes the basic component of wages, the minimum wage, as well as additional components that the employer provides at their discretion. This will make it impossible to pretend externally that employees of the same category have the same gross wage and to camouflage differences with additional components. The penalties are high, which is precisely why a well-established remuneration system is necessary. Do not forget that the system is uncompromising: reversed burden of proof, retroactive payment of the difference in reward, and penalties. You will learn more in our article provided below: