28-11-2019

Swiss Post will today sign the “Charter for equal pay in the public sector” in Berne. By signing, the enterprise affiliated with the Confederation is making a stand on equal pay between women and men. Swiss Post has voluntarily made its salaries available for assessment since 2009. At present, the unexplained difference in salaries at Swiss Post stands at -2.2 percent. The company has established a reporting platform in collaboration with its social partners in order to continue reducing this unexplained pay gap.

For many years, Swiss Post has actively been working against all forms of discrimination and promoting equal employment conditions, regardless of language, cultural background and gender. In accordance with its policy, Valérie Schelker, Head of Human Resources, today signed the Charter for equal pay in the public sector on behalf of Swiss Post. “By signing this charter, we’re making a stand on equal pay between men and women”, says the Head of Human Resources at Switzerland’s third largest company at the fourth national meeting for “Promoting equal pay in the public sector” in Berne.

A positive outcome from the assessment of equal pay

Using the salary data from October 2018, Swiss Post voluntarily allowed pay equality between women and men to be assessed for the third time. The latest results of the study showed that within the Group as a whole, the overall unexplained, gender-specific difference in salaries stood at –2.2 percent  after taking into account training, professional experience and difficulty of assigned tasks. The unexplained pay gap at the enterprise affiliated with the Confederation has improved by 1.5 percent since the last comparison three years ago. The Confederation’s accepted tolerance value for unexplained salary differences is 5 percent. Once adjusted accordingly, the unexplained pay gap at Swiss Post is considerably lower. Even after taking the individual subsidiaries Post CH Ltd, PostBus and PostFinance into account, the unexplained salary differences are –0.3 to –3.8 percent below the Confederation’s accepted tolerance value. “Despite these favourable results, we can’t rest on our laurels and need to continue reducing unexplained salary differences”, says Schelker on the results of the study, which was performed in a similar way to the Confederation’s Logib study.

Swiss Post establishes a reporting platform

Measures have already been undertaken by Swiss Post in order to promote equal pay and, in turn, equal opportunities. These include creating a reporting platform in collaboration with its social partners in September 2019 for cases of unequal pay. Employees who believe they are affected by pay discrimination can report their concern via the Postcourage online platform. Equality of opportunity is an important component of Swiss Post’s collective employment contract (CEC), which is why the company is taking this topic into account in its ongoing negotiations with trade unions for the new CEC.

Source: Swiss Post