Equal pay for men and women

Kenny v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform · European Court of Justice · The Weekly Law Reports (www.iclr.co.uk) · 28 February 2013

In the light of article 141 EC and Council Directive 75/117/ EEC (relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women meant, in relation to indirect pay discrimination), it was for the employer to establish objective justification for the difference in pay between workers who considered that they had been indirectly discriminated against and the comparators. The employer’s justification for the difference in pay had to relate to the comparators. The interests of good industrial relations might be taken into consideration by the national court as one factor among others in its assessment of whether differences between the pay of two groups of workers were due to objective factors unrelated to any discrimination on grounds of sex and are compatible with the principle of proportionality.