Leverton v Clywd CC [1989] IRLR 28

• Plaintiff was employed as a nursery nurse and sough to use male clerical staff as her comparators who were employed by Defendant but at a different establishment, so that she had to establish ‘common terms and conditions (under s.1(6) EqPA).

• HL held that it would be necessary to compare that actual terms and conditions observed at the two establishments applicable either generally or to a certain class of employees.

  • In this case they were all employed under the same collective agreement, so that it wasn’t a problem that there were some differences in their contracts, and s.1(6) was satisfied. 

Lord Bridge

• A loose approach to s.1(6) is needed:

The concept of common terms and conditions of employment observed generally at different establishments necessarily contemplates terms and conditions applicable to a wide range of employees whose individual terms will vary greatly inter se.

• Therefore there can still be big differences in the contracts of the comparators and s.1(6) still applies, provided that there is ‘general’ observance of common terms and conditions of work.

• Contracts which, despite varying, are all made within the boundaries set by a collective agreement, appears to be the ‘paradigm’ example of the situation s.1(6) applies too.

• However there was a material difference between Plaintiff and comparators since there were material differences, e.g. no. hours worked and holiday time.

Lord Templeman

• It was unnecessary (and impossible) to show exact correspondence between the material differences and the pay difference.

• All that was needed was to show that the different pay was ‘genuinely due to’ the material differences. 

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