Employment_law

Equal paySouth Ayrshire Council v Morton (2001) IRLR 28The Employment Appeals Tribunal upheld a tribunals decision that a teacher employed by a local...Equal paySouth Ayrshire Council v Morton (2001) IRLR 28The Employment Appeals Tribunal upheld a tribunals decision that a teacher employed by a local education authority in Scotland was entitled to bring an equal pay claim relying on article 141 of the EC Treaty to compare herself with a teacher employed by a different education authority in Scotland.

According to the EAT, if there is a sufficient connection in a loose and non-technical sense between the employment of the applicant and the comparator from another employer so that they may be said to be in the same establishment and service, and the comparator selected within that umbrella may be relevant.

The EAT concluded that merely because the applicants employer had no power or control over the terms and conditions of employment of the comparator employed by another person, that does not exclude the latter from being a relevant comparator in appropriate cases.

The tribunal was entitled to take the view that the existence of salary scales determined by the Scottish JNC under the aegis of the Secretary of State provided a sufficient connection for an equal pay comparison to be made, against the background of the notion of a service being provided by education generally within Scotland by the teaching profession.

Sex discriminationKachelmann v Bankhaus Hermann Lampe KG (2001) IRLR 49A part-time bank manager was selected for redundancy without her circumstances being compared with those of a shorter-serving full-timer doing the same work.

This was in accordance with German law, but the Advocate General regarded that as insufficient justification for indirect sex discrimination.

The European Court of Justice, perhaps surprisingly, took a different view.

If comparability between full-timers and part-timers were to be introduced, that would place part-timers at an advantage because in the event of their jobs being abolished, they would have to be offered a full-time job, even if their contract did not entitle them to one.

Whether part-time workers should enjoy such an advantage is, according to the European Court of Justice, a matter for the national legislature, which enjoys a reasonable margin of discretion as regards the nature of social protection measures and the detailed arrangements for their implementation.Account of profitsAttorney General v Blake & another (2001) IRLR 36The House of Lord held that the Attorney General was entitled to an account of a former spys profits from his autobiography, which he had written in breach of a contractual undertaking not to divulge official information which he had gained as a result of his employment in the Secret Intelligence Service.

There is no reason in principle why the court must in all circumstances rule out an account of profits as a remedy for breach of contract.

This is a potentially far-reaching judgment, and will interest employers seeking to deter ex-employees from poaching business.

However, Lord Hobhouse, dissenting, cautioned against attempts to extend the decision to commercial situations so as to introduce restitutionary rights beyond those presently recognised by the law of restitution.