Topics

Equal pay

New and updated

  • Date:
    15 July 1997
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: Amount of maternity pay was adequate

    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.

  • Date:
    1 May 1997
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: No indirect pay discrimination in voluntary severance scheme

    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.

  • Date:
    15 September 1996
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: Immediate successor can be comparator

    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.

  • Date:
    15 July 1996
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: Comparators in cross-establishment claims

    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.

  • Date:
    1 August 1995
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: Competitive tendering did not excuse pay-cut

    In Ratcliffe and others v North Yorkshire County Council the House of Lords upholds a finding that women school catering assistants were entitled to receive the same rate of pay as their male comparators employed by the council on work rated as equivalent.

  • Date:
    1 March 1995
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Administrative error justifies pay difference

    In Young v University of Edinburgh the EAT finds that an employer can establish a defence to an equal pay claim by showing that the difference in pay was genuinely due to an administrative error, which the employer could not rectify without creating further anomalies.

  • Date:
    1 March 1995
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Comparator must be of opposite sex

    The principle of equal pay under Article 119 of the EC Treaty only applies where the comparator is in fact of the opposite sex, the EAT holds in Collins v Wilkin Chapman, overruling the decision of an industrial tribunal that a claim could be brought where the comparator is perceived to be of the opposite sex, but is the same sex biologically.

  • Date:
    1 February 1995
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Equal pay: No discrimination against part-timers in overtime rules

    It is not contrary to EC equal pay law to restrict the payment of premium overtime rates only to employees who work more than the designated number of normal full-time hours, holds the European Court of Justice in Stadt Lengerich v Helmig and five joined cases.

  • Date:
    1 September 1994
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Transsexual comparator permitted under Article 119

    In Collins v Wilkin & Chapman, a Nottingham industrial tribunal rules that an equal pay claim may be brought under EC law where the comparator is perceived to be of the opposite sex but is the same sex biologically. In P v S and Cornwall County Council, a Truro industrial tribunal seeks guidance from the European Court of Justice on whether the Equal Treatment Directive prohibits discrimination against a transsexual.

  • Date:
    1 June 1994
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    PRP scheme lacked transparency

    An assessment process for performance-related pay purposes, which led to a woman being paid £780 a year less than men on like work, suffered from confusion, double counting and an absence of transparency, rules a Norwich industrial tribunal (Chair: D R Crome) in Latham v Eastern Counties Newspapers Ltd.