A woman was offered 3,500 euros a month during the training period – the woman said yes. Only to find out later that the male colleague with the same job was getting a whopping 1,000 euros more per month. On the other hand, the disadvantaged complained and got right before the Federal Labor Court.
Germany’s highest labor judges have improved the position of women in the dispute over equal pay with men. In a case from Saxony, the Federal Labor Court in Erfurt decided that employers cannot justify differences in earnings between women and men with their different negotiating skills (8 AZR 450/21).
It awarded a 44-year-old woman from Dresden, who worked in sales at a metal company in Saxony, a back wage of 14,500 euros and compensation of 2,000 euros. Presiding judge Anja Schlewing said that if women and men were paid differently for the same work, as in the case under discussion, that would justify the presumption of gender discrimination. According to the judge, employers could not refute this assumption with the argument that the man had negotiated better or that he was prospectively intended for a management job.
In the case under discussion, the difference in basic salary during the probationary period was an impressive 1000 euros per month, later after the introduction of a collective agreement it was still around 500 euros – with the same responsibilities and powers. The employer justified the large salary difference by saying that she had negotiated worse than her male colleague when she was hired. Both were initially given the same salary offer. The employer relied on the principle of contractual freedom for the different pay – and was successful with the labor and state labor court in Saxony.
The Federal Labor Court has now largely overturned the decisions of the lower courts in Saxony. The plaintiff’s lawyers spoke of a milestone after the verdict. You see the Supreme Court judgment as a step towards more fair pay in Germany.
The difference in pay between women and men is not uncommon in Germany – according to the Federal Statistical Office, the gender-specific pay gap was 18 percent last year. According to this, in 2022 women received an average gross hourly wage of EUR 20.05, EUR 4.31 less than men with EUR 24.36. The statistics office explains almost two-thirds of the wage gap with higher part-time quotas and lower salaries in occupations typical of women. An adjusted gap of around 7 percent of gross hourly wages remains with no clear explanation.
In 2006 the gap was still 23 percent. In East Germany, where the case takes place, the wage gap is smaller than in West Germany: 7 percent, in the West 19 percent.
