Sex discrimination claims

The employment and discrimination team has acted for many women who have been paid substantial compensation because they were given a much lower bonus than men doing similar work but performing less well than our clients.

The question to ask is 'how would I have been treated if I was a man' - with the assumed characteristics of a man.  Would I have been appointed, promoted, received a higher bonus.

What is indirect sex discrimination? This occurs where a woman is disadvantaged because of an unjustified or unreasonable  provision, criterion or practice, which applies to men and women, but particularly disadvantages women, compared to men.

 For example:

• Requiring full-time or long hours: this will disadvantage more women than men as it is still mainly women who take primary responsibility for childcare so cannot work full-time or long hours.  The key question then is whether the job can be done on the requested hours and this is for the employer to show;
• Requiring variable hours, such as shifts, unplanned overtime: again this is likely to disadvantage women compared to men because of the difficulties of getting flexible childcare

We act for many women who want to negotiate part-time and flexible hours and obtain compensation for them if their requests are unreasonably refused.

What is victimisation? It is unlawful to treat a worker less favourably because s/he has complained of discrimination, brought a claim or been a witness for a complainant. For example, it would be victimisation to make an employee redundant because she had raised issues of discrimination.

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