Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2022, published 111st ILC session (2023)

Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) - Democratic Republic of the Congo (Ratification: 1969)

Articles 2(2)(b) of the Convention. Wage policy. Minimum wage. With regard to its previous request concerning the criteria for the allocation of family allowances, the Committee notes that under section 2 of Ministerial Order No. 137/CAB/MINETAT/MTEPS/01/2018 of 8 November 2018, “where the father and mother of a child are covered by different schemes, family benefits shall be allocated under the most advantageous scheme”. As regards the wage policy which was due to be examined and updated by the tripartite committee, the Committee emphasizes that making equal pay for men and women an explicit objective of this policy helps to implement the principle of the Convention and reduce the gender pay gap. In the absence of more recent information on this point, the Committee once again requests the Government to provide information on:

• (i)the status of the adoption of the wage policy and on all measures taken to ensure that this policy takes account of the principle of the Convention;
• (ii)awareness-raising and training activities for the members of the tripartite committee and the National labour Council (CNT); and
• (iii)any adjustment of the minimum wage and its impact on reducing the gender pay gap.

Article 2(2)(c). Collective agreements. The Committee notes that none of the collective agreements that are reportedly attached have been received and that it is therefore not in a position to evaluate their content in terms of the application of the Convention. The Committee therefore once again requests the Government to provide extracts from collective agreements so that it can verify whether they contain clauses that refer explicitly to the principle of equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value and to the principle of objective job evaluation in order to fix pay scales. In this regard, the Committee requests the Government to indicate the measures taken to ensure that functions and tasks considered to be “feminine” are not undervalued when setting rates of pay in the public and private sectors.

Article 3. Objective job evaluation. The Committee notes the Government’s indication, in the context of updating the general job classification, that it will take account of objective criteria, such as skill, effort, responsibilities and working conditions. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the method and the criteria used for determining the new job classification.

Statistical information. In order to determine whether a gender pay gap exists, the Committee once again requests the Government to take the necessary steps to collect and compile data, disaggregated by sex, on the participation of men and women in the labour market and their respective earnings, if possible by occupational categories and/or sectors of economic activity.