Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1997:76
Date: 1997-02-20
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Social Policy
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Ireland

Summary of the Judgment
Social policy — Men and women — Equal pay — Job-sharing scheme in the civil service —
Incremental credit determined on the basis of the criterion of actual time worked — Regression
on the pay scale for job-sharers entering or returning to full-time work — Job-sharers consisting
mainly of women — Not permissible unless objectively justified
(EC Treaty, Art. 119; Council Directive 75/117)
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SUMMARY — CASE C-243/95
Article 119 of the Treaty and Directive
75/117 on the approximation of the laws of
the Member States relating to the application
of the principle of equal pay for men and
women are to be interpreted as precluding
legislation which provides that, where a
much higher percentage of female workers
than male workers are engaged in job-
sharing, job-sharers who convert to full-time
employment are given a point on the pay
scale applicable to full-time staff which is
lower than that which those workers previ­
ously occupied on the pay scale applicable to
job-sharing staff due to the fact that the
employer has applied the criterion of service
calculated by the actual length of time
worked in a post, unless such legislation can
be justified by objective criteria unrelated to
any discrimination on grounds of sex.
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