Part-time work and equal pay

Part-time employees are entitled to equal pay under the EA 10. Part-time workers also have specific rights under the Part Time Workers (Prevention of Unfavourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 (see Chapter 2: Part-time workers). A pay practice that treats part-time workers less favourably than comparable full-time workers is likely to be indirectly sex discriminatory because more women than men work part-time.

Refusing part-time workers access to a company pension scheme infringes the law on equal pay (Bilka Kaufhaus v Weber von Hartz [1986] IRLR 317). However, claimants must show that they would have joined the pension scheme given the choice. In Copple v Littlewoods PLC [2012] IRLR 121, although female workers were excluded from the scheme because of their part-time status, their claim failed because they could not show that they would have joined the scheme, given the chance.