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Equal pay: "Genuine material factor" need not be objectively justified

This report relates to 2 case(s)

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    Strathclyde Regional Council v Wallace and others [1996] IRLR 670 CS (0 other reports)

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    Tyldesley v TML Plastics Ltd [1996] IRLR 395 EAT (1 other report)

    • No objective justification required

      Date:
      1 July 1996

      In Tyldesley v TML Plastics Ltd (24 January 1996) EOR68C, the EAT holds that in the absence of a suggestion that the factor relied on by the employer to explain a pay differential was indirectly discriminatory, no requirement of objective justification arises under s.1(3) of the Equal Pay Act 1970.

In Tyldesley v TML Plastics Ltd [1996] IRLR 395, the EAT rules that an industrial tribunal was wrong to hold that the employer's genuine material factor defence to an equal pay claim had to satisfy a test of objective justification. Such a test is appropriate only where the factor relied on by the employer gives rise to indirect discrimination.