The ECJ today upheld the requirement under the Equal Pay Act 1970 for workers to bring actions within 6 months of leaving employment, but ruled that the 2-year time limit for back-dating is contrary to Community law. This was no surprise in view of the Advocate-General’s Opinion last September. However, part-timers who want to take advantage of this ruling will have to be willing and able to pay scheme contributions to cover the period of the claim. This difficulty is likely to prevent many claims from going forward.
The Court also outlawed any rule which requires a part-timer to claim membership of an occupational pension scheme within 6 months of the end of each contract of employment, where there has been a stable succession of short-term contracts with the same employer.
Further details of the ruling can be found in the summary press release or the full text of the judgement.
This somewhat pyrrhic victory for part-timers comes less than a fortnight after the government belatedly announced that the EU Part-Time Work Directive would be implemented from 1 July - it should have been by 7 April - via The Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations. In these final Regs, coverage has been widened from “employees”, as the government originally proposed, to “workers”. Once again, though, it’s a good news & bad news story: the continuing requirement for a part-timer to identify a full-time comparator on a similar contract with the same employer will surely make it hard for many claims to proceed.
