The state bank for the state of Baden-Württemberg is the fourth-largest development institute in Germany.
(Photo: PR)
Dusseldorf Male colleagues at the L-Bank in Karlsruhe are said to have earned up to 25 percent more than the former HR manager N. in this position. The personnel officer has therefore sued the Baden-Württemberg State Bank for discriminatory and non-gender-neutral remuneration.
The Karlsruhe Labor Court dismissed the lawsuit in the first instance. The question of the presumably large salary differences and the reasons for this remain unanswered for the time being.
For almost 30 years, N. worked for the Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg, the fourth largest public development institute in Germany. In 1993 she started as a trainee, made a career and finally rose to HR Manager in 2018. In April of this year, the 56-year-old went into passive semi-retirement.
But the past did not let go of N.. The reason: N. assumes that all HR managers before her or her successor earned significantly more. There are six executives in all – they are all men.
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N. is pretty sure of herself, having had insight into the salaries of all L-Bank employees for many years. In order to be able to claim damages, the salaries must first be officially recorded.
Her lawyer Martin Eigenberger justifies the fact that N. only now decided to sue by saying that she can go into the dispute with less burden in the passive partial retirement.
N. receives support from some of her male ex-colleagues. Three of the men asked the bank and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for the participation of the state of Baden-Württemberg, to disclose their salaries and released them from data protection and the obligation of confidentiality.
“They expressly ask for cooperation and clarification on the question of whether the plaintiff experienced gender-related pay discrimination while working as HR manager at L-Bank,” N’s lawyer said.
Bank does not want to disclose comparative salaries
The L-Bank rejects the allegation of discrimination against the Handelsblatt: “L-Bank pays its employees regardless of gender and position.” All employees of the L-Bank are independent of gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age , sexual orientation and identity are treated equally. “This also includes position-based remuneration based on objective, non-discriminatory standards,” say a spokesperson.
However, the L-Bank and the Ministry do not want to specify the comparative salaries. When asked, the ministry replied that the matter was the responsibility of the L-Bank. The bank, in turn, believes that the legal requirements for this transparency are not met.
“In the present case, the comparative work was carried out by fewer than six employees, so that no comparative remuneration had to be stated,” the bank said. There is no adequate comparison group.
Unlike N. and her lawyer, the bank does not include all of the men who have held the post since N. joined the bank almost 30 years ago in the calculation. She also bases this on the fact that the respective tasks were not comparable.
There is a reason why the bank referred to a comparable job involving fewer than six employees in court. Since 2017, employees have had the right to know what colleagues in comparable positions in the company earn. According to the Pay Transparency Act, employers with more than 200 regular employees are obliged to disclose a comparative salary that results from the average salary of at least six employees of the opposite sex.
If, after a comparison under the Pay Transparency Act, it turned out that N’s male colleagues earned better, the bank would be under pressure. Because last year, the Federal Labor Court ruled in a comparable case that lower pay meant discrimination based on gender. In future, the employer will have to prove the opposite in such cases.
How the labor court in Karlsruhe justified its judgment is not yet known. You now have five months to do that. N. and her lawyer want to wait for the reasons before they possibly go to the next instance.
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