Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1997, published 86th ILC session (1998)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Chile (Ratification: 1971)

The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its report and the annexes included and, in particular, the study dated March 1995 on "Difference between women's and men's wages in Chile: 1990-1993" prepared by the Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM) which shows a decrease in the gap between women's and men's wages (73.1 per cent in 1990 and 77.9 per cent in 1993).

1. In its previous direct requests, the Committee requested the Government to indicate the manner in which, and the provisions by which, it ensures the application of the principle of equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value, in accordance with the Convention. The Government referred to article 19(16) of the Constitution and section 2 of the Labour Code as applying the above principle; however, the Committee has already noted that these provisions only refer in a general manner to the principle of equal treatment. The Government once again states that there are no provisions in legal instruments which go against the Convention but that, if there were any, they would be contrary to the Political Constitution and that an appeal of non-applicability for reasons of unconstitutionality of the legal matter in question would be brought before the Supreme Court of Justice as provided in article 80 of the Constitution. The Committee refers to paragraph 38 of its General Survey of 1986 on equal remuneration, where it addressed the question of the direct applicability of constitutional guarantees. In that paragraph, the Committee referred to the importance of court decisions based on self-executing provisions in applying the Convention. Accordingly, the Committee requests the Government to inform it of the jurisprudence handed down by the tribunals responsible for the application of the constitutional provisions on the subject.

2. The Committee has asked repeatedly to be sent copies of collective agreements which illustrate the manner in which wages that are higher than the minimum are fixed in the various sectors of the economy, perhaps by calling on the assistance of employers' or workers' organizations. Furthermore, it requested the Government to supply statistics indicating the proportion of women covered by collective agreements and the distribution of men and women workers at the various levels covered by the agreements. The Committee notes once again the Government's statement that it does not have at its disposal copies of such collective agreements or of the statistics requested. Noting that, according to an ILO publication of 1994 entitled "Equality of opportunity for women in the 1990s" the Council for Women concluded agreements with the Ministry of Labour, along with joint plans of action, in order to carry out activities in the area of equal employment, in particular, the updating of statistics, the Committee requests the Government to supply information on this activity.

3. The SERNAM study mentioned above shows clearly that women's wages are lower than men's in almost all branches of economic activity, particularly in industry and finance in which they barely exceed 50 per cent of the men's wage. These are precisely the branches where there has been the largest increase in women's employment between 1990 and 1993. The study concludes that there is no single simple explanation for wage differences between men and women. They are due partly to clear practices of discrimination in the workplace. But they are also the results of other less closely related circumstances such as the different value given to men's and women's occupations or the educational and labour options which women take on the basis of the many traditional features of Chilean society. Inequality of income between men and women is less acute in the salaried segment and there, the situation has been improving for women. This is where the majority of salaried women workers are found but incomes are lower and have increased less than in the other occupational categories such as the self-employed and employers. Incomes of the self-employed have increased most but the difference between men and women is greater and becoming larger.

4. In view of the recent information analysed in this study, the Committee recalls that a State which has ratified the Convention must promote and guarantee the application of the principle of equal remuneration as provided in Article 2, paragraph 1, of the Convention. Please forward detailed information on the methods the Government intends to use to improve the application in practice of the principle of equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value.