A factory's equality plan is decided by its job classification
Nextica Law & Tax negotiates and drafts the industrial company's equality plan with the negotiating committee, builds the diagnosis on real workforce data and files it with the public register of collective agreements, as RD 901/2020 requires. The detailed work lies in the pay audit under RD 902/2020: in a factory, the metal agreement's professional groups separate production from administration and maintenance, and that is where the gap appears that has to be explained or corrected. We review job evaluation against effort, hardship and responsibility criteria; the shift and night premiums, which distribute money unevenly without anyone having decided so; and work-life measures in a plant running three shifts.
The plan is written and filed, and the gap is still there because nobody looked at how the agreement classifies jobs.
What's included
1. Setting up the negotiating committee with the appropriate representation, which in a factory with a works council and union sections is not a formality but the first negotiation.
2. A diagnosis built on real workforce data
distribution by professional group, shift, seniority and contract type, which is where the problem shows before it is named.
3. A pay audit with the RD 902/2020 register
mean and median by sex, group and job of equal value, premiums included.
4. Job evaluation against objective criteria — physical effort, hardship, process responsibility and training — so production can be compared with administration and maintenance.
5. Reviewing the supplements that distribute money without anyone deciding to
shift, night, on-call and production bonuses.
6. Work-life measures that are viable in a three-shift plant, and an anti-harassment protocol as part of the plan.
7. Filing the plan with the public register of collective agreements, and a monitoring calendar with the committee.
THE GAP IS NOT IN THE PAYROLL: IT IS IN HOW THE AGREEMENT CLASSIFIES
Nobody decided to pay differently. The professional groups, the night shift and a job evaluation that was never done decided it.
A diagnosis built on the workforce the company thinks it has
the plan is negotiated on real disaggregated data, and if the diagnosis does not capture it, the plan is registrable but useless, because it does not attack what produces the difference.
RD 901/2020 on equality plansA pay register without the supplements
the duty covers all remuneration, salary and non-salary, so leaving out shift, night or production premiums makes the register non-compliant and, on top of that, hides exactly where the gap usually sits in a plant.
RD 902/2020 on equal payComparing only within the same agreement group
the law requires comparing jobs of EQUAL VALUE, which are not those in the same group but those demanding equivalent effort, training and responsibility. Without objective job evaluation there is no way to sustain the comparison or explain the difference.
art. 28 of the Workers' StatuteIS YOUR BUSINESS REQUIRED? — THRESHOLD TABLE
The calculation of employees includes all the company staff, regardless of their type of contract, working hours, or workplace. Part-time workers are calculated according to their equivalence to full-time.
| Template | Equality Plan | Remuneration audit | Reporting channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Less than 50 workers | Volunteer | Not mandatory | Volunteer |
| 50 to 249 workers | MANDATORY — negotiated with RLT | MANDATORY — included in the Plan | MANDATORY since 2023 |
| 250 or more employees | MANDATORY · annual remuneration register | MANDATORY · annual update | MANDATORY since 2023 |
Less than 50 workers
50 to 249 workers
250 or more employees
Frequently asked questions
We have a registered equality plan. Why do we still show a pay gap?
Because the plan and the pay register are two different obligations, and the gap lives in the second. RD 902/2020 requires publishing the mean and median pay of each sex by professional group and by job of equal value, and in a factory the agreement's groups bundle jobs that are not worth the same: if production is mostly men and administration mostly women, the average comes out uneven even though nobody decided to pay differently. The way out is not to dress up the number: it is job evaluation against objective criteria — effort, hardship, responsibility, training — that lets you explain the difference or correct it.
Do shift and night premiums count towards the gap?
They do, and in a shift plant they are usually the main cause. The pay register covers all remuneration, salary and non-salary, and the night premium is paid for working nights, not for the job. If the night shift is worked almost entirely by men, that supplement becomes a gap in fact. It is worth looking at before the audit: sometimes it is fixed by opening access to the shift on transparent criteria, and sometimes it is enough to document why the split is what it is.
Cases we have worked on
- industria
Reestructuración de un grupo familiar sin conflicto
Let's talk about your company.
Tell us your situation and we'll reply within 24 working hours.