The City Council of Écija, a Sevillian population of about 40,000 inhabitants that brings together one of the most important historical sites in Andalusia, has been sentenced for having spent four years paying around 6,500 euros per year more to men than to women despite occupying both genders the same jobs. Says a sentence of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) that speaks directly of “salary discrimination for reasons of sex” and “illicit practice” of the City Council.

Thus, the Andalusian high court ensures that men with the same position receive complementary differences of at least 6,500 euros and that women receive between 21,000 and 30,000 euros per year while men earn between 32,000 and 36,000.

The sentence, which was notified this Monday, July 4, contradicts a previous dismissal of the Contentious Court Number 7 of Seville and agrees with a worker from the Écija City Council who fought to declare the existence of salary discrimination between men and women who hold the same job.

The 22 pages of the court document review the dispute between the worker and the previous courts and end up being very forceful in their conclusions: “Estimating wage discrimination based on indirect sex based on the illegal practice of the Écija City Council of recognizing indefinitely a complement salary for temporary attributions”.

The sentence specifies it as follows: “In the annual remuneration from 2016 to 2019 of the civil servants with the category of Administrative Manager, group C1, a lower remuneration of women can clearly be seen, with gross annual remuneration between 21,466 and 25,936 one, between 26 and 27,000 something (sic) another, and one, dating back to 1981, reaches 30,000. On the other hand, the male Administrative Managers are recognized in all the payrolls of those four years some ‘complementary differences’ of around 6,500 euros per year and in short, their annual remuneration ranges between 32 and 36,000 euros gross per year”.

The TSJA ensures that “the appellant has accredited a discriminatory indication based on sex” and says why: “For four years all men have earned more than all women in the same category.” And he concludes: “Without sufficient justification.”

Even the court, citing a judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU, maintains that it is “indifferent” that there were suitability reports favorable to men because “when the result is systematically detrimental to female workers, this can only be because the employer has applied it in an abusive way”.

The key is that women administrative managers are not recognized the salary supplement that is granted to men administrative managers. Result: salary discrimination.

And the TSJA highlights that this discrimination occurred and persisted despite the existence of three reports that warned of a situation of inequality: one from the intervener, who was favorable to the recognition of that supplement; another from the section chief, who said that “comparative grievance situations may arise, in particular with regard to the group of administrative managers due to gender”, and a third from the General Secretariat, who urged that temporary attributions be regularized.

The case was won by the law firm of Valentín Aguilar, an Andalusian lawyer specializing in Labor Law. “The ruling highlights wage discrimination based on gender, which had been claimed for many years by female workers,” says Aguilar. “This supposes a clear continued contempt for the equality to which all female workers are entitled within a Public Administration, which should be the first to defend their rights. And omitting, in addition, the labor inspection, that had already demanded from the City Council an Equality Plan that was mandatory by law”.

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