According to expert Monika Wieczorek, after the provisions of the directive of the European Parliament and of the EU Council on equal pay for men and women (the so-called gender pay gap) come into force, employers will have to abandon solutions that prohibit employees from talking about their remuneration. Such provisions are included in some contracts. There will also be an obligation to inform the job candidate about his salary.
See also: Revolution in labor law from June. No more secrets around salaries
EU directive. It's not about openness, but about transparency
What is the main assumption of the EU directive? The labor law expert emphasizes that it is not about transparency of wages and debunks the myth that it will be possible to find out the salary of a colleague from the next desk.
— This is not a directive, as is said, on the transparency of remuneration. This is a directive on equal and transparent pay, emphasized Wieczorek. As she explained, employers will be obliged to determine salaries based on objective and gender-neutral criteria. They will also be obliged to “inform job candidates about the amount of remuneration they will receive before concluding an employment contract.”
The expert noted that the employee will be able to know the level of his or her remuneration compared to the category of employees who perform the same type of work or of similar value.
— However, I must deny the information that job advertisements require the provision of salary ranges. The employer may transfer this information even a moment before concluding an employment contract, which is met with great social dissatisfaction, the expert noted.
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Although the EU directive should enter into force in the Member States from June 7, in practice its implementation varies. Monika Wieczorek in the PAP Studio noted that Poland has not yet fully adopted the provisions of the directive, even though on December 24, 2025, an amendment to the Labor Code regarding the transparency of wages in job advertisements entered into force.
She recalled that these provisions do not implement the main assumptions of the EU directive, which Poland should implement by June 7. — We did not do this as a European Union member state, but we are not alone in this. […] Most recently, on June 7, when these regulations should have been implemented throughout Europe, Slovakia did so. “I think Europe has failed to implement this directive,” she said.
