Job shares
[ch 15: page 108]An employer’s refusal to agree to a job share can amount to sex discrimination:
Ms Lax worked as a retail recruitment manager for a brewery company. An employment tribunal ruled that her employer’s refusal to permit a job share of her full-time role when she returned from maternity leave was unlawful indirect sex discrimination which could not be justified. The tribunal rejected the employer’s justification that the nature of the role involved functions that were incapable of being split between two people and ruled that although the role could not be undertaken part-time, it could feasibly have been carried out by two part-time job-sharers. Lax was awarded compensation of £60,000. The Court of Appeal upheld all aspects of the tribunal’s ruling.
Hardys & Hansons PLC v Lax [2005] IRLR 726
There is more information about challenging decisions on the basis of indirect discrimination in Chapter 7.