Tuesday 14 June 2016

The EU debate - discrimination

In this blog I want to look at the legal effect of EU membership from the perspective of discrimination law.

I begin by quoting (again – I hope he does not mind) from the advice of Michael Ford QC to the TUC* on this subject:

“It is difficult to overstate the significance of EU law in protecting against sex discrimination.“

I am (again) deliberately trying to avoid a political take on this stuff. I think Ford’s point would be accepted without significant qualification by perhaps 80-90% of employment lawyers.

Why is that? Here are a few concrete examples of legal changes that arose directly out of EU legislation/caselaw:
  • Protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Until 2003 this was not a protected characteristic (like sex, race and disability). The Regulations that made it so came about in consequence of the EU Framework Directive.
  • Pregnancy protection: the European courts decided that it was not open to an employer to argue that it could justify discrimination against a pregnant woman by saying “we would have treated a man off with sickness the same way” – they ruled that pregnancy is (rather obviously) a female-specific condition – so that no comparison was necessary. Without that ruling protection from pregnancy discrimination would be hugely undermined.
  • In the Equal Pay sphere the ECJ extended the concept of pay to pensions – so that part time workers were successfully able to claim equality of terms on the pensions front (and since most part timers are women…
  • The ECJ has opened the way to claims of “associative discrimination” e.g. you must not discriminate against A, on the basis of A’s child’s disability (even if A is not disabled).
  • Compensation: the European requirement for proper compensation for discrimination made it so that the UK now allows unlimited compensation for victims of discrimination (it is plain that imposing a cap is on the agenda in the event of a Leave vote).
None of this is controversial stuff. Links to the cases and Regulations that support these conclusions are all in the advice to which I link below.

Of course, none of this means you must vote any particular way. My aim is simply to shed some factual light on just a small part of a subject that seems littered at present with half-truths and hyperbole.


Paul Scholey - Senior Partner

For further information on Employment Rights please visit our website or call 0033 3344 9603 and ask to speak with our Employment Rights team.


Wednesday 1 June 2016

The EU debate – thoughts on holiday rights

There is a lot of fairly heated discussion on the “Brexit” debate.  The claims and counter-claims by each side have begun, I suggest, to border on the silly.  Hyperbole is the order of the day.

I want to look, in the next couple of weeks, at just a handful of what I think are concrete matters (in so far as law is ever so dependable) that relate to the legal effect of our participation in the EU.

First off: holidays.

My clients were always surprised when, early in my career (nearly 30 years back), I advised them that they were not automatically entitled to paid holidays.  Indeed, they were not entitled, unless their contract provided otherwise, to any holidays at all.  Not even bank/public holidays.  It was perfectly possible to agree to work 52 weeks a year, with no holiday; or to find that such holidays as one might take, were unpaid.

That held true till 1998 and the Working Time Regulations (WTR).  Under those Regulations, as subsequently amended, employees are now entitled to 5.6 weeks a year paid holiday.  Also rest breaks, and a limit (usually honoured in the breach) on working hours.

The WTR arose directly out of Europe’s health and safety based Working Time Directive.  I doubt many people now think it’s a bad thing, to have a legal entitlement to paid time off.  But UK governments have not all agreed.

So it’s worth bearing in mind that the UK government:


  • took 2 years longer than it ought, to implement the WTR
  • challenged the legality of the Directive in the ECJ
  • campaigned against it
  • took advantage of derogations from it (e.g. the individual opt-out for the maximum working week)
  • framed the WTR so that regular overtime and e.g. commission payments were all ignored in calculating holiday pay
Michael Ford QC, in his excellent advice to the TUC* on the implications of a Leave vote (and whether you agree with him or not, it’s an impressive piece of work), says this:  “In  the  event  of  Brexit,  substantial changes to or wholesale revocation of WTR is predictable.”  That can’t be far wrong, given the above mentioned approach of the UK to the WTR/Directive historically.

We can see more recent evidence of this in relation to the “Bear Scotland” series of cases on calculating holiday pay.  As soon as it became clear that a European approach to calculation was appropriate (so that e.g. overtime would be included in holiday pay), the government legislated almost overnight a) to put a 2-year “long stop” on claims for historical back pay and b) to prevent aggregation of claims where there existed any 3-month or longer gap between underpayments.

And to get an idea how politicians are already thinking, you can do worse than looking here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2015-2016/0046/cbill_2015-20160046_en_2.htm#l1g1 – a link to the Private Members’ Bill supported by C R Coope, MP for Christchurch.  There is already a move to water down our holiday rights – it’s not realistic to think that will change on a Brexit event.

None of the above will be much controversial to employment lawyers.  It is a shame that the debate (on both sides of the fence) hasn’t been put in more factual (and less frenetic) terms.  I’d welcome views from readers, especially if expressed in reasonable terms.



Paul Scholey - Senior Partner

For further information on Employment Rights please visit our website or call 0033 3344 9603 and ask to speak with our Employment Rights team.