EC Commission v UK, Case 61/81 [1982] ICR 578

• Commission argued that UK had failed to comply with directive’s demand of equal pay for work of equal value, since EPA (as it then was) didn’t provide the necessary measures:

To enable all employees who consider themselves wronged by failure to apply the principle of equal pay for men and women for work to which equal value is attributed, and for which no system of job classification exists, to obtain recognition of such equivalence.

ECJ

• ECJ accepted this.

• At the time a woman could only make a claim for equal pay where a job evaluation study had been undertaken. Where female employees’ jobs had not been given such an evaluation, they wouldn’t be able to assert their right to equal pay for equal work.

• (NB EqPA has been modified so that a claim can now be made if  the work done by the claimant is the same, or broadly the same, as the other employee; the work done by the claimant is of equal value to that of the other employee; or the work done by the claimant is rated (by a job evaluation study) the same as that of the other employee.)