california employment law letter

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its decision in an important case of equal pay, Cadman v Health and Safety Executive.

In this case, Ms. Cadman, a Health and Safety Inspector in Manchester will receive less pay than men in the same pay bracket. In 2001, Mrs. Cadman was £ 35,129 and one of her male counterparts were paid £ 44,183 more than £ 9,000 more. The pay system was based on seniority. The male colleagues in Cadman-wife team had with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and were therefore paid more. Ms Cadman, that the pay system discriminated against women who tend to have shorter duration of service, the probability to have a career break to care for children. The Court of Appeal the case to the ECJ to decide whether the use of seniority as a factor of a pay system requires objective justification. The ECJ had to consider whether the employer paid, which they operated a system based on length of service must demonstrate that their pay is justified because employees with longer service their tasks better.

The good news for employers, a pay system based on the duration of the service is that the ECJ ruled that employers generally do not need a specific justification for the length of service as a criterion in a pay system, although the results in unequal pay between men and women. Only if the employee can raise serious concerns about the adequacy of the rewarding experience in this manner, having regard to the particular work in question, this justification is not required. Ms. Cadman is now their case to the British courts to see whether they raise serious concerns about the adequacy of pay, set by the HSE.

The mention of the length of service should be something else to the front of the mind - of discrimination based on age. Agency after an employee length of service is seen as age discriminatory because older workers tend to have more service. Will the employer have to a pay system based on length of service in the context of age discrimination legislation?

Under the legislation, services, up to five years' service are allowed. Services provided to employees with five or more years' service, will be allowed if the employer can demonstrate that they meet a genuine business need, such as rewarding experience. One question raised by the courts to clarify whether in this context, "benefits" pay. We must wait and see. In the meantime, if you have a pay system based on length of service (and this applies to employees with five or more years service), you should check whether the system is a real company must meet.

If you have questions about the issues raised in this Alert, please contact one of the employment team.

I'm normally not stray outside the realm of labor law in the tender, but the changes introduced by the Finance Act 2006 are so important that I wanted to save it to your attention.

Labor law attorneys at Cripps Harries Hall LLP have extensive experience in all areas of labor law and the pragmatic and commercial advice. The employment law team of 6 lawyers are aware, a broad spectrum of industries and structures consulting the needs of our customers within their respective companies.