Luxemburg, 07/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice has ruled that remuneration of overtime worked by part-time workers can constitute discrimination against women.
Ursula Voß, employed by Land Berlin as a part-time teacher, worked a large amount of overtime, for which she was paid at a markedly lower rate than her full-time colleagues for their normal work. Ms Voß found this discriminatory, given that her overtime was worked at the same time as the “normal” work of the others. The Bundesverwaltungsgericht (the second chamber of the German court) decided to ask the European Court of Justice if this difference in salary for essentially equal work complied with Article 141 of the EC Treaty, given that part-time workers are for the most part women.
The Court noted that this statistical dimension, in fact, revealed an indirect risk of discrimination against female workers, which would infringe the terms of Article 141 which states that “pay for the same work at piece rates shall be calculated on the basis of the same unit of measurement”. Given that Ms Voß's work was comparable with that of her colleagues, and given the lack of justification that these measures were taken for another valid reason, the German rules in question do not comply with the provisions in the EC Treaty. (C.D.)