ECJ on the discrimination of part-time employees | ZFZ Postcard Cases
A payment scheme, which provides for extra payments above a certain number of normal working hours discriminates against part-time employees pursuant to recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling.
Based on the applicable collective bargaining agreement, German Lufthansa paid its employees additional remuneration once they had reached a certain number of flight service hours during their normal working hours.
As part-time employees reach the flight duty hours less frequently, their effective remuneration is lower than that of full-time employees.
According to the ECJ, part-time employees are therefore discriminated if they are subject to the same thresholds as full-time employees. Therefore, either the thresholds must be reduced pro-rata-temporis in accordance with the individual part-time working time or an objective justification is required for such a different treatment.
For further information on this decision, please reach out to Lukas Wieser and Hans Georg Laimer. The full decision can be found here.