Equal pay time limits

Case 4: The facts

Judith Wilkes was employed by a local council as a music teacher on a series of fixed-term contracts, under which she was not eligible to join the local government pension scheme. She accepted a permanent post as a music instructor in 1990; two years later, she claimed under the Equal Pay Act that she should have been entitled to join the pension scheme during the whole period she had worked for the council.

The council said her claim was out of time; for equal pay purposes, a series of fixed-term contracts that amount to a “stable employment relationship” are treated as one employment, and the six-month time limit for bringing a claim runs from the end of that relationship. Wilkes argued that her permanent contract was a continuation of the employment relationship she had under the fixed-term contracts, meaning that she was not out of time.

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed with the council that the stable employment relationship had ended when Wilkes became a permanent employee. The permanent contract was separate from the previous short-term contracts and represented a fundamental change in the employment relationship, it said; previously, she could not have done anything if the employer had not offered her any work.

The tribunal hearing her case had correctly applied the law in refusing her claim, and had had no discretion to extend the time limit, whatever the reason for the delay.

Wilkes v Dundee City Council & another EAT/0041/06