Instantie

Hof van Justitie EG

Samenvatting

Susan Worringham en Margaret Humphreys waren in dienst van Lloyds Bank.
Deze kende twee pensioenregelingen, een voor mannen en een voor vrouwen.
Mannen waren vanaf het moment van indiensttreden deelnemer en betaalden 5% van
hun salaris aan het pensioenfonds. Die 5% werd echter door de werkgever aan
het salaris toegevoegd en gelijk weer ingehouden en in het fonds gestort. Bij
uittreding voor de 25-jarige leeftijd werd dit bedrag grotendeels uitgekeerd.
Vrouwen daarentegen waren pas vanaf hun 25e jaar deelnemer, hun brutosalaris
was tot die leeftijd lager dan van hun mannelijke collega’s van dezelfde
leeftijd, netto lagen hun salarissen ongeveer gelijk. Het brutosalaris
bepaalde echter mede de hoogte van andere voordelen als werkloosuitkeringen en
kredietfaciliteiten.

Bovendien werd aan vrouwelijke werknemers bij uittreding voor hun 25e
jaar geen bedrag uitgekeerd.

Ingevolge deze pensioenregelingen, die zijn ontstaan uit collectieve
onderhandelingen tussen de vakverenigingen en Lloyds (en door de nationale
autoriteiten goedgekeurd krachtens de “Finance Act 1970” en erkend krachtens
de “Social Security Pensions Act 1975”)doen de leden bij overeenkomst afstand
van het inkomensgebonden deel van de nationale pensioenregeling, dat door de
contractuele regeling wordt vervangen (een zogenaamde “contracted-out”
pensioenregeling).

Het Industrial Tribunal, waarvor de zaak in eerste instantie diende,
verwierp verzoeksters vordering, omdat de in casu gestelde ongelijke
behandeling tussen mannen en vrouwen werd veroorzaakt door m/v verschillen in
de bepalingen van pensioenregelingen en daarom werd gedekt door de
uitzondering van artikel 6, lid 1A, sub. 6, van de “Equal Pay Act 1970”,
waarin voorwaarden betreffende overlijden of pensionering en de werkingssfeer
van het beginsel van gelijke beloning werden uitgesloten.

Verzoeksters gingen in hoger beroep bij het Employment Appeal Tribunal
en betoogden dat de betaling van 5% extra bruto-salaris aan mannelijke
werknemers van Lloyds Bank een gelijke beloningskwestie was die buiten de
uitzondering van artikel 6, lid1A, sub 6 Equal Pay Act 1970 viel. Zij stelden
dat dit artikel in ieder geval niet in strijd met het gemeenschapsrecht mag
worden uitgelegd of toegepast. Het E.A.T. wees het hoger beroep toe met een
beroep op ongelijke beloning tussen mannen en vrouwen beneden 25 jaar. Tevens
oordeelde het E.A.T. dat de voorwaarden in het arbeidscontract betreffende
beloning gescheiden hadden moeten zijn van die inzake pensioen en tenslotte
meende het E.A.T. dat de gewraakte bepaling geen bepaling betreffende
overlijden of pensionering in de zin van artikel 6, lid 1A, sub. 6 was.

Lloyds Bank stelde hoger beroep in bij het Court of Appeal. Dit college
richtte zich met pre-judiciele vragen tot het EG-Hof:

1. Vormen

-door een wetgever aan een pensioenregeling betaalde bijdragen, of
rechten en voordelen van een werknemer ingevolge een dergelijke regeling

een beloning in de zin van artikel 119 EEG-Verdrag?

2. of een beloning in de zin van artikel 1 van richtlijn 75/117 van de
Raad van 10 februari 1975?

3. Indien het antwoord op de eerste vraag bevestigend luidt, heeft
artikel 119 rechtstreekse werking in de lid-staten, in die zin dat voor
particulieren in omstandigheden als de onderhavige afdwingbare rechten
ontstaan.

Het Hof verklaarde voor recht:

1. Een bijdrage aan de pensioenregeling die door een werkgever namens de
werknemers wordt betaald door middel van een aanvulling op het bruto-salaris
en daardoor mede bepalend is voor het bedrag van dat salaris, is een
“beloning” in de zin van artikel 119, tweede alinea, EEG-Verdrag.

2. Artikel 119 EEG-Verdrag kan worden ingeroepen voor de nationale
rechter en deze is gehouden de eerbiediging van de door voornoemde bepaling
aan de justiabelen toegekende rechten te waarborgen, met name wanneer wegens
de alleen op mannelijke of alleen op vrouwelijke werknemers rustende
verplichting om bijdragen aan een pensioenregeling te betalen, de betrokken
bijdragen door de werkgever namens de werknemer worden betaald en worden
ingehouden op het bruto-salaris waarvan zij het niveau bepalen.

Het Hof wist, door zich te beperken tot de specifieke feiten van de
zaak, de algemene vraag naar de toepasselijkheid van artikel 119 op
aanvullende pensioenregelingen te omzeilen. Het herformuleerde de gestelde
vraag in feite door alleen te kijken in hoeverre een werkgeversbijdrage aan
een pensioenfonds door middel van een toelage op het brutosalaris (die
onmiddellijk weer wordt ingehouden) als beloning moet worden beschouwd.

Duidelijk werd wel dat het Hof de bijdrage van een werkgever aan een
pensioenfonds, zowel als die bijdrage indirect plaatsvindt (zoals in de
Worringham-zaak) alsook wanneer de werkgever de bijdrage direct aan het
pensioenfonds betaalt, als loon beschouwt. Ook scheerde het hof de premie-en
uitkeringskant niet langer over een kam.

Volledige tekst

17. In view of all these facts, it is therefore necessary to reply to
Question 1(a) that a contribution to a retirement benefits scheme which is
paid by the employer in the name of the employees by means of an addition to
the gross salary and which helps to dertermine the amount of that salary is
“pay” within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 119 of the EEC
Treaty.

18. In view of this reply, there is no need to examine the second part
of the first question, Question 1(b), which is subsidiary to Question 1(a).

The second question

19. In its second question, which is almost identical to the first, the
national court puts the same problem to the Court with reference to Article 1
of Council directive 75/117/EEC of 10 February 1975.

20. Since the interpretation of Directive 75/117/EEC was requested by
the national court merely subsidiarily to that of Article 119 of the EEC
Treaty, examination of the second question is purposeless, having regard to
the interpretation given to that article.

21. Moreover, Directive 75/117/EEC, whose objective is, as follows from
the first recital of the preamble thereto, to lay down the conditions
necessary for the implementation of the principle that men and women should
receive equal pay, is based on the concept of “pay” as defined in the second
paragraph of Article 119 of the Treaty. Although Article 1 of the directive
explains that the concept of “same work” contained in the first paragraph of
Article 119 of the Treaty includes cases of “work to which equal value is
attributed”, it in no way affects the concept of “pay” contained in the second
paragraph of Article 119 but refers by implication to that concept.

The third question

22. The national court asks further in its third question whether, if
the answer to Question 1 is in the affirmative, “Article 119 of the EEC Treaty
… (has) direct effect in the Member States so as to confer enforceable
community rights upon individuals in the circumstances of the present case”.

23. As the Court has stated in previous decisions (judgment of 8 April
1976 in Case 43/75, Defrenne (1976) ECR 455 and judgment of 27 March 1980 in
Case 129/79, Macarthys Ltd (1980) ECR 1275), Article 119 of the Treaty applies
directly to all forms of discrimination which may be identified solely with
the aid of the criteria of equal work and equal pay referred toby the article
in question, without national or community measures being required to define
them with greater precision in order to permit of their application. Among the
forms of discrimination which may be thus judicially identified, the court
mentioned in particular cases where men and women receive unequal pay for
equal work carried out in the same establishment or service, public or
private. In such a situation the court is in a position to establish all the
facts enabling it to decide whether a woman receives less pay than a man
engaged in the same work or work of equal value.

24. This is the case where the requirement to pay contributions applies
only to men and not to women and the contributions payable by men are paid by
the employer in their name by means of an addition to the gross salary the
effect of which is to give men higher pay within the meaning of the second
paragraph of Article 119 than that received by women engaged in the same work
or work of equal value.

25. Although, where women are not required to pay contributions, the
salary of men after deduction of the contributions is comparable to that of
women who do not pay contributions, the inequality between the gross salaries
of men and women is nevertheless a source of discrimination contrary to
Article 119 of the Treaty since because of that inequality men receive
benefits from which women engaged in the same work or work of equal value are
excluded, or receive on that account greater benefits or social advantages
than those to which women are entitled.

26. This applies in particular where, as in this instance, workers
leaving their employment before reaching a given age are, in certain
circumstances, refunded in the form of a “contributions equivalent premium” at
least a proportion of the contributions paid in their name by the employer and
where the amount of the gross salary paid to the worker determines the amount
of certain benefits and social advantages, such as redundancy payments or
unemployment benefits, family allowances and mortgage or credit facilities, to
which workers of both sexes are entitled.

27. In this case the fact that contributions are paid by the employer
solely in the name of men and not in the name of women engaged in the same
work or work of equal value leads to unequal pay for men and women which the
national court may directly establish with the aid of the pay components in
question and the criteria laid down in Article 119 of the Treaty.

28. For those reasons, the reply to the third question should be that
Article 119 of the Treaty may be relied upon before the national courts and
these courts have a duty to ensure the protection of the rights which this
provision vests in individuals, in particular in a case where, because of the
requirement imposed only on men or only on women to contribute to a retirement
benefits scheme, the contributions in question are paid by the employer in the
name of the employee and deducted from the gross salary whose amount they
determine.

The temporal effect of this judgment

29. In its written and oral observations, Lloyds had requested the Court
to consider the possibility, if the answer to the third question is in the
affirmative, of limiting the temporal effect of the interpretation given by
this judgment to Article 119 of the Treaty so that this judgment “cannot be
relied on in order to support claims concerning pay periods prior to the date
of the judgement”.
..TE1:0. It maintains for this purpose, first, that the problem of the
compatibility of the national law with community law was raised only at the
stage of the appeal brought before the Employment Appeal Tribunal and,
secondly, that acknowledgment by the Court of the direct effect of Article 119
of the Treaty would lead, in a case such as the present, to “claims for the
retrospective adjustment of pay scales covering a period of years”.

31. As the Court acknowledged in its above-mentioned judgment of 8 April
1976, although the consequences of any judicial decision must be carefully
taken into account, it would be impossible to go so far as to diminish the
objectivity of the law and thus compromise its future application on the
ground of the repercussions which might result, as regards the past, from such
a judicial decision.

32. In the same judgment the Court admitted that a temporal restriction
on the direct effect of Article 119 of the Treaty might be taken into account
exceptionally in that case having regard, first to the fact that the parties
concerned, in the light of the conduct of several Member States and the views
adopted by the Commission and repeatedly brought to the notice of the circles
concerned, had been led to continue, over a long period, with practices which
were contrary to Article 119 and having regard, secondly, to the fact that
important questions of legal certainty affecting not only the interests of the
parties to the main action but also a whole series of interest, both public
and private, made it undesirable in principle to reopen the question of pay as
regards the past.

33. In this case neither of these conditions has been fulfilled, either
in respect of the information available at present to the circles concerned as
to the scope of Article 119 of the Treaty, in the light in particular of the
decisions of the Court in the meantime on this subject, or in respect of the
number of the cases which would be affected in this instance by the direct
effect of that provision.

The fourth question

34. As the fourth question was only submitted to the Court of Justice by
the national court in case the first two questions were answered in the
negative, examination of it has become purposeless.

Costs

The costs incurred by the Government of the United Kingdom and the
Commissionof the European communities, which have submitted observations to
the court, are not recoverable. As these proceedings are, in so far as the
parties tothe main action are concerned, in the nature of a step inthe action
pending before the antional, the decision on costs is a matter for that court.

On those grounds,

The court

in answer to the question referred to it by the Court of Appeal, London,
by order of 19 February hereby rules:

1. A contribution to a retirement benefits scheme which is paid by an
employer in the name of employees by means of an addition to the gross salary
and which therefore helps to determine the amount of that salary constitutes
“pay” within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 119 of the EEC
Treaty.

2. Article 119 of the Treaty may be relied upon before the national
courts and these courts have a duty to ensure the protection of the rights
which this provision vests in individuals, in particular in a case where,
because of the requirement imposed only on men or only on women to contribute
to a retirement benefits scheme, the contributions in question are paid by the
employer in the name of the employee and deducted from the gross salary whose
amount they determine.

Rechters

Mertens de Wilmars, Pescatore, Mackenzie Stuart, Koopmans, O’Keeffe,Bosco, Touffait