Joyce Slack and ors v Cumbria County Council
The law states that claimants who want to bring an equal pay complaint must do so within six months of the termination of their contract. In Joyce Slack and ors v Cumbria County Council, the Court of Appeal said that employees who have a succession of contracts can submit their complaint within six months of the end of the chain, as long as it is unbroken.
The claimants are members of UNISON and GMB. Thompsons were instructed on behalf of more than 2000 GMB members.
Basic facts
Mrs Slack and Mrs Elliott had worked continuously for the Council from 1971 and 1996 respectively. Both reduced their hours in 2000. Mrs Athersmith had worked as a relief home carer from November 2000, but was made permanent in April 2001. She was then entitled to occupational sick pay, but otherwise her terms were unchanged.
All three women signed documents stating that "This Contract of Employment supersedes any previous Contract of Employment”. None of them, however, had applied for a new appointment or position calling for a new contract, nor was there any break in continuity of their employment.
They then presented equal pay claims in 2003. The Council argued that as a result of the changes in their working arrangements, their old contracts had come to an end and the only “employment” for which they could claim was the most recent contract. The women claimed their contracts had just been varied and that they could claim equal pay for part of the previous period of employment.
Tribunal and EAT decisions
In the cases of Mrs Slack and Mrs Elliott, the tribunal rejected the Council’s argument and decided that, despite the express statement in the contractual documents that the women had signed, there had been no break in their employment. These, it said, were consensual changes of a continuing contract rather than a new one. In Mrs Athersmith's case, however, the tribunal decided she had been given a new contract when she became a permanent employee.
The EAT held that the express terms in all three contracts were decisive. The documents said that they created new contracts which superseded the old ones, and that is what the parties must be taken to have intended.
Court of Appeal decision
The Court of Appeal agreed with the EAT that the claimants had signed new contracts which were valid and binding on them. As a result, if these claims were to be regarded as “standard” cases (with a qualifying date that fell “six months after the last day on which the woman was employed in the employment.") the women could not claim backpay for any of the time prior to the new contracts taking effect.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission, however (which had been allowed to intervene) argued that, in order to comply with EC law, these cases should be dealt with as “stable” rather than “standard” employment. As an exception to the “standard” case, time would therefore not run until the expiry of the "stable employment".
It said that the ECJ had created this category of claim in Preston and ors v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust and ors (No 3). This meant that “where there has been a stable employment relationship resulting from a succession of short-term contracts concluded at regular intervals" claimants should be able to submit their complaint within six months of the end of a chain of such contracts.
The Court of Appeal agreed that the exception should apply in relation to Mrs Slack and Mrs Elliott, who had done the same work for the Council over many years without any break in the work they did or in the succession of contracts. However, it remitted Mrs Athersmith’s case to the tribunal to decide whether the facts pointed to a stable employment relationship in her situation as well.