Czech Republic has one of the highest gender pay gaps in the EU at 18,5% on average, and 28,4% in the ICT sector. This is the result of a whole range of issues that hide in the dark, issues that pit worker against worker, while employers stick together. We are wasting time on job interviews where we only find out at the very end of the ordeal that the salary offered is way off. New hires often earn more than colleagues who have been with the company for many years. Some job categories are systematically being undervalued. In reality, pay has little to do with difficulty, skill or experience.
And this is only possible because of the one-sided gentlemens agreement we have about moneytalk. When nobody knows what anyone else earns, what a job is actualy worth, these decisions look normal, justified. They look like just the way things are.
But they are not. They are choices made by people with power to benefit themselves, at your expense. Companies know exactly what they are doing - this is by design. Because the secrecy means profit, the silence means control, the division among workers means no one feels entittled to push back.
The European Pay Transparency Directive tries to break that system open. It came to be after Covid, a time where the unfair paydiscrepancy between men and women and the devalueing of feminised labor came to the forefront, and it explicitely aims to counter that. It recognizes that unions are an important factor in doing this. It chose pay transparency as the ultimate tool to handle these issues and make it impossible to hide the unfairness.
EU member states committed to transposing the Pay Transparency Directive into their own legal framework by June 7 2026. The Czech government missed that dealine. Now we are looking at a delay until January 2027. Seven months. At least.
Key tools for employees will come at least seven months to a year and a half late, depending on which tool you need. You suspect you are underpaid. You might even know you are underpaid. But you have no legal right to demand proof. Your suspicion is correct, but the law won’t back you. You are negotiating a raise or a starting salary. You negotiate blind while they negotiate informed. Many more months where companies can hide behind lack of transparency, setting salaries however they like, because nobody can see what anyone else earns. This isn’t a theoretical delay. This is the difference between knowing you’re being treated unfairly and being able to do something about it. Between suspicion and proof. Between silence and power.
And it’s happening because the previous Czech government dragged its feet, and this new one isn’t exactly hurrying to compensate for it. Because giving workers the ability to see and challenge pay discrimination is apparently something that requires extra caution and extra consideration /s.
This is not an expression of care from a government towards its citizens.
Second chance
However, since the transposition hasn’t passed yet, this does give us the opportunity to improve on the current proposal. Because the Czech transposition, as it stands now, is weak, minimalistic, and at points even insufficient. Yet again, it places employer interests at the forefront.
Czech Republic can do better. We have the chance to be bold. Other countries already have. And what they’ve implemented aren’t radical ideas. They implemented a directive that can actually move the needle on inequality. Instead, we got minimalism. We got a transposition that is technically compliant while practically being dull.
You don’t have to accept that. Because that would mean accepting that workers don’t have any power at all in a system designed to keep wages low and keep them competing against each other in the dark. This is about whether workers in the Czech Republic will have any actual power as the labor market continues to shift beneath our feet.
AI is already hollowing out entire job categories. Workers are losing leverage by the day. Companies are getting more aggressive, more ruthless, more willing to exploit whatever gaps exist in worker protection. The labor market is becoming increasingly hostile to anyone who isn’t desperate enough to accept whatever they are offered.
It is still not too late for us to shape what the final transposition will eventually look like, and that’s why we are launching a letter writing campaign!
If you care about fair pay, if you think workers deserve to know what their work is actually worth, tell the government! Tell your MP! Tell your union! Call your allies into action! We have prepared an email you can sign and send.
Tell MPs to not accept this proposal as written. Ask them to submit amendments that strengthen job add transparency and worker participation. Force a real debate about what fair pay means. Tell them that in a time of AI disruption and labor market chaos, we can’t afford a law that scrimps on worker protections.
The government missed its deadline, but the process has started. Give workers the tools to fight for fair pay. Make wage discrimination visible. Make a step towards closing the gender pay gap. Let’s make sure they get it right next January.