Service length and pay

8 February 2010

We acted in two groundbreaking equal pay test cases described as “the most important equal pay cases in ten years” which established that an employer should not be able to pay men more than women just for longer service, where that does not lead to greater skills or better performance in the job.

After almost ten years of litigation on these issues, the Court of Appeal ruled that service-based pay schemes (which reward employees with pay increases for no reason other than how long they have worked for the employer) will have to be justified by employers if they have an unfair impact on women.  The case is an important victory for campaigners against sex discrimination in the workplace as women are less likely than men to have long and continuous service at a single employer for a number of reasons including a greater tendency to take career breaks for family reasons.