1. Social policy – Male and female workers – Equal pay – Pay – Concept – Right to join a private occupational pension scheme – Included – Exclusion of married women from membership – Not permissible – Exclusion of part-time workers – Part-time staff composed principally of women – Not permissible where there is no objective justification
(EEC Treaty, Art. 119)
2. Social policy – Male and female workers – Equal pay – Article 119 of the Treaty – Applicability to the right to join a private occupational pension scheme – Finding in the judgment of 13 May 1986 in Case 170/84 Bilka – Limitation of the effects in time – None – Possibility of retroactively claiming equal treatment from the time (8 April 1976) when the Court first recognized that Article 119 has direct effect
(EEC Treaty, Art. 119)
3. Social policy – Male and female workers – Equal pay – Protocol on Article 119 annexed to the Treaty on European Union – Scope – Right to join an occupational social security scheme – Excluded
(EC Treaty, Protocol on Article 119)
The pension scheme did not admit married women until 1990. Among the questions referred to the CJEU was whether the Barber limitation applied to Mrs Vroege’s claim for equal access to the scheme.
Held: It was ‘important to remember the context in which it was decided to limit the effects in time of the Barber judgment’, and the court reaffirmed the two ‘essential criteria’ for such a limitation, viz, ‘the general principle of legal certainty . . and the serious difficulties which its judgment may create as regards the past for legal relations established in good faith’, both of which had been met in Barber. On that basis, it stated that the Barber limitation ‘concerns only those kinds of discrimination which employers and pension schemes could reasonably have considered to be permissible owing to the transitional derogations for which Community law provided and which were capable of being applied to occupational pensions’ .
Citations:
C-C-57/93, [1994] EUECJ C-C-57/93, [1995] 1 CMLR 881, [1994] ECR I-4541, [1994] IRLR 651, [1995] All ER (EC) 193, [1995] ICR 635
Links:
Jurisdiction:
European
Cited by:
Cited – Walker v Innospec Ltd and Others SC 12-Jul-2017
The claimant appealed against refusal of his employer’s pension scheme trustees to include as a recipient of any death benefit his male civil partner.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The salary paid to Mr Walker throughout his working life was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Discrimination, Employment
Updated: 16 August 2022; Ref: scu.215808