Overview
- The Labour Ministry opened formal talks with employers and unions on Wednesday, July 1 to begin transposing the EU pay‑transparency directive that Spain missed meeting by its June deadline.
- The ministry has circulated a draft that would require companies to keep pay registers, publish salary bands in job offers, ban asking candidates about prior pay and set objective criteria for pay and promotions for firms of 50 or more employees.
- Under the proposed rule employers must justify pay differences exceeding 5% and consult worker representatives, a far tighter threshold than current Spanish practice that has often tolerated larger gaps.
- Unions welcomed the start of talks but issued an ultimatum to the government to approve a reliable working‑hours registry by July 31 or they will halt negotiations over the directive and other matters.
- Legal commentary stresses published data will be aggregated into salary ranges rather than individual pay, and existing Spanish equality plans and audits will interact with the new obligations as enforcement and privacy details are worked out.