The Finnish government today (Thursday) introduced new legislation that will allow workers to access information on the wages of their co-workers, in order to prevent discrimination between men and women in the workplace.
The law will require employers to publish for employees the salary details of colleagues who are in similar or parallel positions in the company in which they work.
The law has been criticized both by labor unions, which demand greater transparency than the new legislation suggests and by large companies and employers in the northern state, who claim the law will cause conflicts and bitterness in the workplace and bring no benefit.
The Prime Minister of Finland, Sana Marin, who is leading a correlation of left-wing and center-left parties, is enthusiastically promoting the new legislation and claims that it will help reduce the wage gap between women and men. Seriously and we will act resolutely to eliminate it, "said Finnish Minister for Equality Thomas Blomqvist.
The Prime Minister of Finland, Sana Marin // Photo: EP,
The minister stated that the government intends to pass the legislation, along with further moves to promote equality in the country's employment market, until the general elections scheduled for April 2023. According to a comprehensive survey by the European Economic Cooperation Organization, Finnish women earn 17.2 percent less than men in the country.
The survey placed Finland in 37th place in the world in wage gaps, far from its Scandinavian neighbors, Norway in eighth place, Denmark in ninth place and Sweden in 12th place.
The decision on the new legislation provoked outrage among employers' organizations.
The Finnish Manufacturers' Union has announced that it will withdraw from the Joint Transparency Joint Committee following the legislation, as its members fear that the new law will cause serious disagreements between workers and management and between the workers themselves.
"Making the publication of the data mandatory will cause great and unwanted curiosity among the workers and will destroy the atmosphere in the work environment," claims Katya Lafen, a senior consultant for the manufacturers' organization to the Reuters news agency.
The tax authorities in Finland publish annually the tax data paid by all the citizens of the country and the information can be used to estimate the income of the citizens of the country.
However, the tax authority notes that this is not an accurate tool and state legislators are demanding a more accurate mechanism.
Maria Maca, a journalist and entrepreneur in the country, has been publishing her salary and earnings data since 2018, with the aim of encouraging a discourse of transparency and openness and narrowing the pay gap.
"There have been situations where I have found that people in the same position as me, earn significantly more. This is their place," Maca told Reuters.