Labour Court rejects civil servants’ pay discrimination appeal on jurisdiction

The Labour Court has affirmed a decision that it had no jurisdiction to investigate seven civil servants’ complaint about alleged sex discrimination in public service pay increases. The determination was signed on 22 June 2006, and the discrimination allegations were not decided on their merits. The complainants, represented by the Civil and Public Service Union, argued that benchmarking arrangements gave larger pay increases to predominantly male grades than to predominantly female grades. They also challenged a separate pay review for craft workers. The Department of Finance argued that the benchmarking report was not a collective agreement and that the complainants had not identified a specific agreement provision for investigation. The Court agreed that the report was not itself a collective agreement and found that no relevant provision in the cited agreements had been identified. It affirmed the Director’s decision and disallowed the appeal.