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Northern Ireland
Mulgrew v Board of Governors of Larne Grammar School [2012]
Published on: 24/02/2012
Issues Covered:
Discrimination
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Background The claimant in this case was appointed Year Head in 2008. In order to facilitate childcare, in 2008/2009 and in 2009/2010, the claimant applied for and was granted temporary variation in her employment contract, which reduced her working week from five days to four days. During that two year period, the claimant was required to relinquish her Year Head post, and the associated salary supplement, as part of the temporary contract variation.The claimant returned to her normal contractual terms and worked full-time from September 2010 for a one year period. During that period, she resumed her responsibilities as Year Head and received the related salary supplement. In September 2011, the claimant again reduced her working week from five days to four days as a temporary contractual variation for the purposes of childcare. The claimant was again required to relinquish her Year Head post and the associated salary supplement while she worked part-time.The claimant lodged a claim on 24 June 2011 which alleged in part indirect sex discrimination in relation to the temporary variations in contract. The claimant lodged a second claim on 27 January 2012 raising the same issues. The respondent lodged a response to the second claim and it was agreed that both claims would be consolidated. The industrial tribunal unanimously decided that the claimant was unlawfully and indirectly discriminated against by the respondent on the ground of her gender by the requirement that a Head of Year post could only be held by a full-time teacher. The claimant was awarded £5000 (plus interest) for injury to feelings and instructed that the equivalent of the responsibility payment for this year be paid to the claimant.In their decision the Tribunal stated, “To exclude part-time workers from such positions, solely on the ground that service provision might sometimes fall short of the gold standard, or might sometimes involve flexibility from other workers, would be to reverse any progress in equal opportunities terms back to the 1950s.” 43http://bit.ly/of8h3d

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 24/02/2012
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