The New EU Pay Transparency Directive: Potential and Limitations Event

Abstract: After years of scarce legislative developments, EU equality law seems to be gaining momentum, at least in the field of gender equality. Following the adoption of the Work-Life Balance Directive in 2019, in March 2021 the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay through pay transparency. Additionally, after a decade of discussion, a political agreement was finally reached in June 2022 to adopt the ‘Women on Boards’ Directive. Given the complex causes of gender inequality – including gender pay inequity – such a combination of measures may bring about a powerful toolbox to make progress in the right direction. This presentation will focus on one of those measures: the new EU Directive on pay transparency, which is expected to be formally adopted in early 2023. In particular, it will analyse the potential and limitations of the key substantive individual and collective measures contained in the forthcoming Directive.

Speaker Bio: Sara Benedí-Lahuerta's research focuses on discrimination and employment law (at EU and comparative levels). She is particularly interested in avenues to improve the effectiveness of equality law through a range of regulatory tools like equality bodies, positive duties, ADR, and collective remedies. Her current research projects concern the analysis of pay transparency regulation to address the Gender Pay Gap and EU policies to address hate speech. Other recent projects include: ‘Rethinking EU Equality Law’ (2016-18) and ‘The impact of Brexit on EU nationals’ vulnerability: the case of Polish nationals’ (2018-19). She also participated in the project: ‘Future Directions in EU Labour Law’ (2015-16), coordinated by Prof. Prassl (University of Oxford).

She has written articles on the collective enforcement of equality law, European equality bodies, the European Social Pillar, the links between migration and discrimination. Her research has been published in leading journals, including the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Journal, the European Labour Law Journal.

She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and she received several teaching awards from the University of Southampton (Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award at Faculty Level in 2018 and short-listed for the Virtual Learning Environment Awards in 2016). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester (2015), an LLM in EU Law from the College of Europe (2008), and a double degree in Law and Business from the University of Zaragoza (2007).