10.05.06
Men CAN be paid more than women – or can they?
I am terribly confused. And who could blame me?
From yesterday’s Irish Times
Headline: “EU court rules women can be paid less”
“Europe’s highest court has ruled women can be paid less than men on the basis of length of service in a firm – even if they have to take time off to bring up children, writes Jamie Smyth, European Correspondent. The landmark judgment marks a setback for equal-pay campaigners and was criticised by Irish MEPs yesterday for not taking into account women’s dual role in the workplace and the home. The European Court of Justice found that length of service is a legitimate criterion to award higher pay rates to certain workers.
It also ruled that employers do not have to justify on a case-by-case basis their pay structures based on the length of service. In the specific case, the court rejected a claim by British health inspector Bernadette Cadman, who said her employer unjustifiably paid her male colleagues on the same grade more only because they had worked more years.”
From yesterday’s Guardian
Headline: “Higher pay for long service ruled illegal”
Employers cannot lawfully pay some workers much higher salaries than others solely on the ground of long service, the European court of justice ruled yesterday in a judgment that will force thousands of employers to review their pay schemes.
The ruling from Luxembourg sets a precedent and means employers in the UK, if challenged, will be obliged in many cases to give a valid reason for paying thousands of pounds extra to someone with more experience, and will not be able to merely cite years of service
The decision will have a potentially huge impact on public sector employers, including the civil service, where wide differentials based on length of service are more common than in the private sector.
However, it will not have an effect on women taking maternity leave, despite some reports last night that the ruling would leave women who took time off after having a baby with no right to claim the same pay as male colleagues.…..The court’s decision is a victory for Bernadette Cadman, a principal Health and Safety Executive inspector who took her case to an employment tribunal five years ago after discovering that male colleagues in the same grade were earning between £5,000 and £9,000 more”
Daniel K. said,
October 5, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I think the Guardian had two stories ready to go and went with the wrong one. And the decision has nothing to do with gender.
fmk said,
October 5, 2006 at 3:18 pm
actually, i think it’s a case of the glass is half full / the glass is half empty, with the gruan seeing the glass as half full and the times seeing the glass as half empty.
what the court said was: “The present case does not directly call into question pay systems that use length of service as a pay criterion, but it may indirectly affect such pay systems.”
what the judges decided was: “If the employer is unable to provide justification for the structure of the pay system, it will have to provide specific justification for the difference in pay levels as between the employee who has complained and other employees performing the same job.”
the case now goes back to the uk courts, and it’s only then you’ll know whether cadman wins or loses.
as far as i can tell, the irish times article is wrong, in that the court merely said that existing case law was still valid. where the gruan is right is that court also decided that there are incedences in which current case law is not applicable. where the gruan is wrong is that they rely on lots of ifs and maybes. somewhere between the two stories is a fair english translation of the court’s legalise.
fmk said,
October 9, 2006 at 12:50 pm
two updates for you:
the gruan have corrected their headline for this story – http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,,1889657,00.html ;
karen coleman on newstalk’s wide angle discussed it on sunday, noting the contradictory coverage, and john waters claimed that the irish times story was wrong. you can download the show from http://www.newstalk106.ie/podcasts/wangle.xml (feed link).