Legal advice: Colleagues are paid unequally for the same work
After repeated requests for job evaluation, an MBO employee finds out that colleagues in the same position are paid better. The employer adjusts the wage, but the employee also wants wage compensation and calls on the help of the AOb .
Picture: Type tank
After two years of secondment, Afiya Song is hired on a permanent basis in 2017 at a ROC in North Brabant. The position was not yet described in the job manual when she was appointed, because this was still a pilot. The employer has not discussed this pilot with the employee participation body of the school, which should have been.
When she took office, Afiya always asked for an assessment of her duties as a whole. In 2018, two new colleagues were hired in the same 'position' as Afiya, but they are ranked higher. Afiya learned of this through the corridors and confronted her employer about it. She initially received zero on her claim, but later she did receive a one-time bonus for her effort and good performance.
Scale up
Ultimately, the employer carried out a job evaluation in 2020, which showed that the entirety of tasks must indeed be valued with a scale higher than the scale in which Afiya was placed. The employer then adjusted her wages to the higher scale.
Afiya then reported to me, lawyer of the AOb, to file a wage claim on its behalf. The collective labor agreement for secondary vocational education obliges employers to value all available positions within the organisation. Because the employer has violated this obligation, Afiya has lost wages.
Equal work
In the first instance, the employer took the position that the package of tasks concerned a pilot and that the ROC could not be blamed for this. It was not yet known to which scale the position should be linked and in 2017 she herself agreed to the lower salary. To this I replied that Afiya requested a job evaluation almost immediately when she took office. In addition, I pointed out to the employer that in the case of equal work, in principle equal wages must be paid. I also indicated that for this pilot no consultation took place with the employee participation body and the legal validity of the decision for that pilot can be disputed.
Ultimately, the arguments were decisive and an opening was created in which the employer was willing to compensate a large part of the lost salary in the form of a one-off payment, including correction of the incurred pension damage, 8 percent holiday allowance and 8,3, XNUMX percent year-end bonus.
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