Working hours and work organisation 



Working hours, and changes to work arrangements, can impact unfavourably on workers with protected characteristics. 



As regards religious observance, special rules under the Sunday Trading Act 1994 protect some retail and betting shop workers in relation to demands for Sunday working (see Chapter 4: Working Hours). 



For other workers, Sunday working is normally a matter for the employment contract, although issues of religious discrimination can sometimes be important. As always, the context is crucial, as this Court of Appeal ruling demonstrates: 



Here is another good example, concerning a request for time off during the working day for religious observance:


Disputes over working hours can also involve issues of sex or pregnancy discrimination. Many successful cases have involved requests for adjustments to working hours and working patterns for female workers with care responsibilities. Here are some examples: 



• in Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary v Chew [2001] UKEAT/503/00/2809, it was held that given the size of the workplace and the fact that the proportion of women was quite small, a refusal to accommodate requests for a part-time working pattern that did not involve weekend working was indirect sex discrimination; 



• paying a bonus in return for agreement to work different shifts, from a five day week to a seven day continental 3-2-2 shift pattern (“disturbance payments”) only to a group of mainly male workers, on the basis that the women were less determined than the men to challenge the new shift arrangements was sex discrimination (MFI v Bradley and others [2003] UKEAT 1125/02/2107); 



• insisting on office-based and full-time working, and refusing a woman’s request to work from home due to difficulties with childcare was sex discrimination (Lockwood v Crawley Warren Group [2000] UKEAT 1176/99/2806);



• refusing a discretionary loyalty bonus to reward an “orderly and effective” relocation from one office to another, to employees who were on maternity leave during the relocation was sex discrimination (GUS Home Shopping Limited v Green & Another ([2000] UKEAT 994/99/2709); 



• introducing a new shift pattern which meant that a female worker with a young child would have had to work unsocial hours could be indirect sex discrimination (London Underground v Edwards [1995] IRLR 355); 



• imposing a mobility clause in circumstances where fewer women could comply with the requirement was sex discrimination (Meade-Hill v British Council [1995] IRLR 478); and



• failing to notify employees who were on a career break of the availability of voluntary redundancy was sex discrimination, where the evidence showed that women take proportionately longer career breaks than men (HM Land Registry v Benson [2011] UKEAT/0197/11). 



The rules on making a request for flexible working are relevant here. They are set out in Chapter 9. The refusal of a request to work flexibly can also amount to sex discrimination in appropriate cases.