Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Lithuania (Ratification: 1994)

Article 3 of the Convention. Objective job evaluation. In response to the Committee’s previous request to provide information on any measures taken or envisaged to promote wage transparency, the Government indicates that transparency and legislative measures to address the gender pay gap through the job evaluation system have been taken, including: (1) the amendments to the Law on State Social Insurance in 2021, which allow the Social Security Fund to publish gender-differentiated earnings of enterprises; and (2) the publication of a table with the codes of all companies and average wages for men and women, provided the company has at least eight employees and includes more than three women and more than three men. It notes however that there is no update on the Tripartite Council of 2015 suggestion to review the 2005 methodology of the assessment of jobs and positions. The Committee further takes note the Government’s statement that, during inspections in 2022, the State Labour Inspection identified several issues in many companies, such as: (1) a significant wage disparities between the minimum and maximum wages within the same employee category; (2) a lack of objective criteria for determining specific wage amounts, leading to decisions on wages, allowances, and bonuses being made by the employee’s direct manager or the head of the company on the basis of non-transparent criteria; and (3) a tendency to segregate men and women into different company divisions, with women often placed in the lowest-paying departments. The Committee observes that the Directive (EU) 2023/970 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between women and men through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms (EU Pay Transparency Directive) entered into force on 6 June 2023, and that EU Member States must implement it within three years. In light of the persistent gender pay gap, the Committee urges the Government to provide information on: (i) any progress regarding the review of the methodology for the assessment of jobs and positions; (ii) the impact on the transparency of the remuneration systems of the amendments to the Law on State Social Insurance in 2021, and the publication of the table with average wages for men and women for all companies;and (iii) the effective application of section 140(5) of the Labour Code which provides that the remuneration system must be designed in such a way as to avoid any gender discrimination or discrimination based on other grounds. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the transposition of the EU Pay Transparency Directive into the national legal framework and its implementation.

Article 4. Cooperation with workers’ and employers’ organizations for the purpose of giving effect to the Convention. The Committee observes that no information has been provided on the steps taken, in cooperation with the social partners, to promote the principle of the Convention in branch, territorial, and enterprise negotiations.Consequently, it once again urges the Government to communicate information on the application of section 140(3) of the Labour Code which provides that remuneration systems are determined by collective agreement or, in the absence of such agreement (in workplaces with an average number of at least 20 employees) that they can be approved by the employer after information and consultation procedures, and be accessible to all employees. The Committee again asks the Government to provide relevant extracts of collective agreements containing provisions that reflect the principle of the Convention.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.