Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2019:113
Date: 2019-02-14
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Second Chamber
Subject matter: Principles, objectives and tasks of the Treaties;Social Policy
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling;Reference for a preliminary ruling - decision unnecessary
Origin: Ireland

Reference for a preliminary ruling from The Labour Court, (Ireland) made on27 February 2018 – Tomás Horgan, Claire Keegan v Minister for Education & Skills, Minister for Finance, Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform, Ireland and the Attorney General (Case C-154/18) Language of the case: English Referring court The Labour Court, Ireland Parties to the main proceedings Applicants: Tomás Horgan, Claire Keegan Defendants: Minister for Education & Skills, Minister for Finance, Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform, Ireland and the Attorney General Questions referred Does it constitute indirect discrimination on grounds of age, within the meaning of Article 2(b) of Directive 2000/78/EC1 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, for a Member State, in its capacity as an employer, to introduce lower salary scales for new entrants to the profession of national teacher while leaving unaltered the pay of those teachers already in employment, where: the revised salary scales and the existing salary scales apply to all teachers in the respective categories regardless of their age; at the point at which they were recruited and placed on the respective scales there was no difference in the age profile of those in the higher paid group and those in the lower paid group; the introduction of the revised scales has resulted in a substantial difference in pay as between two groups of teachers who are engaged in work of equal value; the average age of those placed on the reduced salary scales is lower than that of the average age of those on the original salary scales; at the point at which the lower salary scales were introduced, the State’s statistics showed that 70% of teachers appointed were 25 years of age or under and it was acknowledged that this was typical of the age profile of entrants to national teaching in any given year; and national teachers who entered the profession in 2011 and later suffer a clear financial disadvantage in comparison to their teaching colleagues appointed prior to 2011. If the answer to question 1 is in the affirmative, can the introduction of the lower salary scales be objectively justified by a requirement to achieve a medium- to long-term structural reduction in the cost of the public service, having regard to budgetary constraints facing the State and/or the importance of maintaining good industrial relations with existing civil and public servants? Would the answer to question 2 be different if the State could have achieved equivalent savings by reducing the pay of all teachers by a significantly lesser amount than the reduction applied only to newly recruited teachers? Would the answer to questions 2 or 3 be different if the decision not to reduce the salary scales applicable to teachers already in employment was taken in compliance with a collective agreement between the Government as an employer and the trade unions representing public service workers whereby the Government committed not to further reduce the pay of existing public servants who had already been subject to pay cuts and the industrial relations consequences that would flow from a failure to comply with that agreement, having regard to the fact that the new pay scale introduced in 2011 did not form part of such a collective agreement? ____________ 1 OJ 2000, L 303, p. 16.