Part-time work and equal pay 





Part-time employees are entitled to equal pay under the EA 10. They 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 also likely to be indirectly discriminatory against women, 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. Otherwise, they will be unable to demonstrate loss and their claim will fail. In Copple v Littlewoods PLC [2012] IRLR 121, although female workers had been 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.