European Union law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

European Union law - Essay Example The case involved a claim from a Belgian woman employee whose compensation on termination of her employment was less than that given to her male counterparts performing identical duties. ECJ held that Article 157 TEFU providing for equal pay for men and women was directly effective provision of the Treaty enabling private citizens to sue their Governments or their agencies in the national courts of their state for remedy against sex discrimination (Tovey, 2010-2011). In Defrenne, it was made clear that the principle of equal for equal work would not only be binding on the member state but also private employers as guided by Article 119 of EC later Art 141) which sets out criteria to identify direct and overt discrimination (Defrenne v Sabena , 1976). In this connection, Article 157 defines payment of wage or salary and any other consideration whether in cash of kind received by an employee directly or indirectly. Further, in Defrenne, it was held social security schemes or benefits s uch as retirement pensions directly governed by legislations fell outside the scope of Art 157 TEFU. Now, regarding the case of Kate of personnel department aggrieved over her less favourable treatment than the employees of marketing department, article 4 of the Directive 2006/54/EC needs to be examined. Article 4 of the Directive states that for the same work or work of equal value, there should be no discrimination in pay on the basis of sex. Kate’s case is that pay for marketing department employees is one third higher than that of her own pay. There is no case that marketing department employee’s pay differed in terms of sex. In this case, all the marketing department employees are males except for one part-time female employee. There is no case that she is being paid lesser a rate of pay than her male counter parts receive. It is