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Equal pay
In Preston and others v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust and others (No.2) and Fletcher and others v Midland Bank plc (No.2) the House of Lords holds that the six-month limitation period laid down in s.2(4) of the Equal Pay Act 1970 does not breach the principle of equivalence.
An employer is not obliged to justify a variation in pay or conditions between a woman and men employed on like work, work rated as equivalent or work of equal value if the employer has proved the absence of direct or indirect sex discrimination, holds the House of Lords in Glasgow City Council and others v Marshall and others.
In Lewen v Denda, the European Court of Justice rules that, where a bonus that is paid voluntarily as an exceptional allowance at Christmas is awarded retroactively as pay for work done, an employer is precluded by Article 141 of the Treaty of Rome from excluding female workers on parental leave entirely from the benefit of the bonus, without taking account of the work done. But an employer may lawfully refuse to pay such a bonus to a woman on parental leave where that payment is subject only to her being in active employment.
An employer contravened the principle of equal pay for equal work contained in Article 141 of the Treaty of Rome when it paid a part-time employee who attended a full-time union training course her normal part-time pay rather than payment for the hours actually spent attending the course, holds the EAT in Davies v Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.
In Davies v Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) uses EC equal pay law to rule that an employer has to pay a trade union health and safety representative for all five days of a training course, even though it employs her on a part-time basis.
Calculating severance payments by reference to length of service and final pay, so that a part-time employee who had previously worked full time did not have her full-time service reflected in her severance payment, was not discriminatory, holds the House of Lords in Barry v Midland Bank plc.
In Gillespie and others v Northern Health and Social Services Board and others (No.2) and Todd v Eastern Health and Social Services Board and another, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal rules that contractual maternity pay is adequate in terms of European Community equal pay law, and does not "jeopardise the purpose of maternity leave", if it is at least equivalent to statutory sickness benefit.
In Barry v Midland Bank plc, the EAT holds that a woman bank employee was not indirectly discriminated against on the ground of her sex when the bank calculated her severance pay by reference to her part-time salary at the time of termination, notwithstanding that she had been employed full time for the first 11 years of her 13 years' service.
In Diocese of Hallam Trustee v Connaughton, the EAT holds that an industrial tribunal had jurisdiction to hear a woman's complaint that she was being paid less than she would have been paid if she were a man doing equal work for the same employer.
In British Coal Corporation v Smith and others, the House of Lords holds that a woman claiming equal pay for equal work with men employed by the same employer at different establishments must show that those men, and employees in the same category as them at her own establishment, were or would be employed on broadly similar terms and conditions.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to equal pay.