A TOTAL of 550 female clerical and sales assistants in nine Penneys stores in greater Dublin are seeking equal pay with a group of the company's storemen, the High Court was told yesterday.
The group is appealing one part of a Labour Court determination rejecting a claim for equal pay and accepting the company's submission that the difference in pay resulted from factors other than gender.
The company is Primark, trading as Penneys, Mary Street, Dublin. It states the different pay rates arise from grounds other than gender and from two separate sets of pay agreements over the years. The Mandate trade union negotiated for the clerical and sales assistants and SIPTU on behalf of the storemen.
Ms Mary Finlay SC, for the employees, said the 550 women were employed by Primark as clerical and sales assistants in nine Penneys stores in greater Dublin.
She told Mr Justice Barron the case was an appeal on a point of law on one part of a Labour Court determination. If they were successful in the High Court case the matter would be sent back to the Labour Court.
The employees were claiming equal pay with 11 named male storemen who worked at the Mary Street store. The female employees claimed that they did work of equal value to the storemen.
The equality officer upheld the claim that it was work of equal value. However, she rejected a claim for equal pay, upholding the company's claim that the difference in pay resulted from factors other than gender. In 1991, the Labour Court endorsed the equality officer's conclusions.
Ms Finlay said there was a net issue of law. She would submit that the Labour Court had accepted historical reasons as to how the difference in pay arose. It was clear the Labour Court only examined how the difference came into existence. There was no consideration in the Labour Court of the justification for it and that was the point at issue.
One of the historical reasons was a productivity agreement. The equality officer had stated the two rates of pay had derived from different sources and the storemen's wages derived from a separate set of negotiations in the past.
However, the equality officer had not examined whether the company was now justified in paying a higher rate to the storemen.
The equality officer and Labour Court might explain how the present rates came into existence, but it was a different matter to justify that the employer was entitled to pay a higher rate to an exclusively male group as against a female group doing work of equal value.
The case continues today.