Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2016, published 106th ILC session (2017)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Burkina Faso (Ratification: 1969)

The Committee notes the observations of the National Confederation of Workers of Burkina (CNTB), transmitted with the Government’s report.

Article 1(a) of the Convention. Remuneration. In response to the Committee’s request for clarification, the Government confirms that the emoluments, payable directly or indirectly, whether in cash or in kind, by the employer to the worker arising out of the worker’s employment are equal for all workers, whether they are men or women. The additional emoluments consist of deductions from the Single Tax on Remuneration and Salaries (IUTS) and family allowances. In practice, all workers, without distinction based on gender, benefit from family allowances per child up to a limit of six children and tax deductions for dependants. A dependent child is a dependant who gives rise to a tax deduction. However, a couple in which both the man and the woman work cannot both enjoy these benefits. They are therefore granted to one or other of the spouses, at their choice, in conformity with the Committee’s position, which is to leave it to the spouses to decide which of them will receive the allowances. Consequently, the Committee requests the Government to provide a copy or copies of the pertinent labour legislation for both the public and private sectors, in order to enable the Committee ascertain the consistency of the legal framework with the practice outlined by the Government.

Article 2. Application of the principle in practice. In its report, the Government details the measures adopted or envisaged under the vocational training component of its National Employment Policy, the objective of which is to extend the supply of training and improve its quality. In this regard, the Committee notes the stark analysis of the technical and vocational education and training system carried out by the authorities, which sheds light on the poor performance of the system, characterized by the absence of skilled personnel, the rigidity of the public training mechanisms, the low level of skills in the private sector, the mismatch between training programmes and the profiles of trainees in relation to the needs of the economy and public under-funding, which hinders any improvement in the supply and quality of training. These difficulties are compounded by the weakness of relations between training institutions and the private sector. With a view to providing an effective response to these difficulties, the support programme was launched for the Sectoral Technical and Vocational Education and Training Policy (PAPS/EFTP) 2012–16. Among the many measures referred to in the Government’s report, the Committee notes that, with few exceptions (such as the adoption of a national strategy to promote women’s entrepreneurship, launched by the Council of Ministers on 24 June 2015, for which the plan of action (2016–18) is under preparation), they all aim to promote employment in general. However, these measures do not specifically address the issues covered by the Convention, namely, action to combat sexist stereotypes and occupational segregation between men and women in the labour market, which give rise to wage discrimination in practice. The Committee draws attention to the fact that the effective application of the Convention requires the adoption of proactive measures to address the underlying and persistent causes of the concentration of men and women in different types of activities and jobs whereby one gender is generally limited to a restricted range of occupations (horizontal segregation) with different levels of responsibility (vertical segregation) (see 2012 General Survey on the fundamental Conventions, paragraphs 710–712). For this reason, although the Committee welcomes the measures taken in relation to vocational training to improve the general employability of girls and boys, and of women and men, it requests the Government to provide information on the specific measures adopted or envisaged, both under the National Employment Policy and the National Gender Policy, to combat occupational segregation on the labour market and wage discrimination between men and women for work of equal value and to enable both women and men to have access to better paid jobs, occupations and positions.

Article 3. Objective evaluation of jobs. The Committee notes that the Government’s report remains silent on the progress made in the process of classifying jobs and the analytical method for objective evaluation, finally, selected. It, therefore, once again requests the Government to provide detailed information on the implementation of the process of the classification of jobs and on the measures adopted or envisaged, in collaboration with employers’ and workers’ organizations, to finalize a method for the evaluation of jobs based on objective and non-discriminatory criteria which go beyond the qualifications and experience required for a job, and to promote the use of this method in both the public and the private sectors.

Article 4. Cooperation with employers’ and workers’ organizations. In the absence of information on the rule of employers’ and workers’ organizations in the effective application of the principle of the Convention, the Committee, once again, requests the Government to encourage the social partners to address this issue, particularly, within the framework of the Joint Commission on Wage Bargaining in the Private Sector. The Committee asks the Government to provide information on the progress achieved, in this respect.

Monitoring and enforcement. The Committee notes that, according to the Government, the violations detected by the labour inspection services in relation to wages are not related to compliance with the principles set out in the Convention, but concern non-compliance with minimum wages. In 2013, of the 49,300 violations detected, 3,852 related to minimum wages by category, or in other words of the 27,555 cases detected during inspections, 3,852 were paid at a rate lower than the minimum wage for their occupational category. In its observation on the application of the Convention in practice, the CNTB confirms the existence in practice of cases of wage inequality in certain enterprises, but adds that in the absence of formal complaints received by the union, it is difficult to attest that such violations exist in practice. The Committee requests the Government to indicate the percentage of men and women in the 3,852 cases of violations detected by labour inspectors in 2013, and the occupational categories concerned. The Committee asks the Government to also provide information on any court rulings relating to inequalities between men and women in relation to remuneration and to assess the effectiveness of the appeal procedures and remedies available and their impact.

Statistics. According to the Government, Employment Working Paper No. 50 on Labour Market and Employment Policies in Burkina Faso of 2010, published by the National Observatory of Employment and Training established in 2001, the average wage gap between men and women in the public sector is around 20 per cent, and that in the formal private sector over one third of women receive wages below the level of the minimum wage, compared with 17.8 per cent of men. In the view of the authorities, these data reflect in particular the low level of income related to the fact that women are engaged in low-paid categories of jobs. This information confirms the Committee’s conviction that, in order to combat effectively the persistent problem of the remuneration gap between men and women, it is indispensable to analyse the types of jobs occupied by men and women and their remuneration in all categories of employment within the same sector and in different sectors. The Committee, therefore, encourages the Government to continue its efforts for the compilation of statistical data disaggregated by gender and refers to its general observation of 2006 on the Convention, which provides guidance on the most useful types of statistical data. In light of the statistics supplied by the National Observatory of Employment and Training, the Committee invites the Government to provide information on the proactive measures adopted or envisaged to reduce this wage inequality between men and women for work of equal value. The Committee asks the Government to continue to provide the fullest possible statistical data disaggregated by sex.