Double discrimination against part-time carers

Two employees were employed part-time as carers at a German dialysis centre. All the employees at the centre were covered by a collective agreement where they received overtime pay for hours worked above the average number of hours for a full-time employee.

The company had more than 5,000 employees, of whom approximately 77% were women. More than half of the employees were employed part-time, and approximately 85% were women. Of all the full-time employees, 68% were women.

One question was whether it was unlawful discrimination that the part-timers were only entitled to overtime pay when they exceeded the hourly rate of a full-time employee. The second question was whether the part-time workers were also unlawfully discriminated against based on their gender because so many of them were women.

A not-so-gorgeous gender discrimination

The European Court concluded that the part-time workers were discriminated against because they had the same threshold for overtime pay as full-time workers. They were also discriminated against based on their gender because the majority of them were women.

The company tried to justify the discrimination by claiming that it wanted to ensure that the part-time employees did not work more than they were hired for and that it would otherwise treat the full-time employees worse than the part-time employees. The European Court of Justice ruled that both reasons were illegal.

IUNO’s opinion

Several collective agreements have the same threshold for overtime pay for both part-time and full-time employees. The judgement shows that an objective reason is required to continue to do so. It is unclear how the ruling will change the Danish labour market, but some collective agreements will likely have to be changed.

IUNO recommends that companies pay attention to whether part-time and full-time employees have different employment conditions and, if so, what the reason is. If a larger group of employees is treated worse than another group, it may be unlawful discrimination.

[European Court of Justice’s judgment of 29 July 2024 in the joined cases C-184/22 and C-185/22]