From the past 7 of March, companies with 50 or more workers are required to have a Equality plan and as of today they have only completed one 20% of them. The rest are exposed to strong sanctions by the labor authority.
Equality Plan in the company: new legislation
Since March 7, 2022, all companies with 50 or more people on staff are required to have an Equality Plan, as established in the RD 901/2020 of October 13, which developed articles 45, 46 and the third Final Provision of the Equality Law. When calculating workers, it must be taken into account that the aforementioned plan not only affects regular workers, but also people assigned through an temporary employment agency. If we talk about groups of companies, a single plan can be drawn up for all or part of the companies in the group, taking into account the activity of each company and the collective agreements applicable to each of them.
Although this measure has not been approved recently, but rather there has been a transitional period of adaptation so that all companies, since 2019, could apply the new legislation according to the number of workers they had in it, The truth is that today, less than a 20% of companies The obligated parties have the aforementioned plan, according to the data from the Registry of Collective Agreements and Agreements (REGCON), which is the place where they have to be registered.
As often happens, obligations are usually left until the last minute and now it is up to companies that have not complied with the law and do not have the mandatory equality plan in their company, if they do not want to face a infringement punished with fines that can vary between €626 and €187,515 for the most serious cases, in addition to the bonus losses, aid from European funds and benefits from employment programs, among others, who may suffer.
Prepare an equality plan It is not a simple task nor that it be done instantly, it will depend largely on the number of workers in the company, and can range from a 2 month average for companies with 50 workers up to 6 months for a company with more than 250 employees. We must count on this, and although it is true that there are specialized platforms in the preparation of these plans, which facilitate the work of the employer, it is also true that many of the equality plans that have been approved by the labor authority and registered in the registry, have been carried out by the companies themselves and there are official guides published on the web, free that help a lot in the preparation of the aforementioned Plan, which represents a great advance. I can cite you as an example. The Women's Institute Guide, which constitutes a very useful tool in this matter.
Is there any subsidy or public financing to develop this Equality Plan?
One of the issues that must be taken into account and from which many companies have benefited is whether there is any type of subsidy or public financing that allows companies reduce costs in preparing the plan. The Ministry of Equality has allocated 225,000 euros for this aid and has been lent free advice to companies from different public organizations. It would be necessary to ask the town councils where the interested companies are located if there is any type of aid that they can benefit from.
Steps to create an Equality Plan
Broadly speaking, the first thing we have to do to carry out an equality plan is to build a negotiating commission, formed equally by the company and the employees, through their union representatives, and have a balanced proportion of women and men. Personnel with training or experience in equality matters must participate.
After the creation of the Commission, a diagnosis of the situation of the different matters that the plan must address. Once the document has been prepared, the application must be submitted to the competent authority within fifteen days from its signing. The labor authority will check it and if they approve it, it will be published. It will be valid for 4 years after which it must be reviewed.
In short, whoever is reading this post and knows a company with more than 50 workers that has not developed its equality plan, insist on the convenience of doing so as soon as possible because the Labor Inspection is already acting and imposing sanctions on employees. stragglers
