The general attorney Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer rendered his conclusions, on July 11, on a prejudicial question addressed to the Court of Justice of European Communities (CJEC) by a German jurisdiction. The latter was seized by a professor who denounced the legislation enforceable to her and which causes employees who work part-time – mostly women – to be paid less than their colleagues working full time whereas they perform – extra hours included – the same amount of hours. On this more general question of wage comparison criteria, the general attorney proposed that the CJEC has to take interest both in global wages and in every element of the salary to dig out discriminations when both these analysis methods do not get to the same result. (Ref. 070624)
Individual facts. In Germany, a teacher working part-time performing extra hours up to the same hourly wage of a professor working full time, receives a lower salary than the latter. Seized by a complainant who denounced this unfairness, a German jurisdiction addressed the CJEC a prejudicial question in order to determine if this situation did not conceal indirect gender-related discrimination – since women are a majority in the contingent of part-time workers – prohibited by european law, more specifically article 141 of the EC treaty which sets the principle of equal pay between male and female workers.
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