European Union Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 2

European Union Law - Essay Example Based on similar grounds, directive 2004/113/EC was implemented in order to expand the protection against gender discrimination in different areas of the society1. In the light of discrimination, Article 141 TFEU plays a significant role by obligating EU member states to ensure any kind of discrimination with respect to sex must be prohibited. In this context, Article 157 deals with maintaining ‘equal pay for both male and female workers’ in an organisation for similar job responsibilities2. Discrimination practices in employment can occur in different situations and under different conditions. For instance, when an employee receives treatments which segregate them from other employees bearing same job responsibilities, on the basis of subjective or assimilated criteria such as gender, nationality, religion, disability, age, marital status, parental status, political views, socio economic view and trade union activities, it may be referred to as discriminatory practices. Discrimination and equality are governed by the key principle that an employee must receive equal treatment. Contextually, the code of non-discrimination is used to gender oriented discriminations concerning equal pay for male and female in Article 157 TFEU. This Act is used for avoiding pay gap between the earnings of men and women in an organisation. Under Article 157, an employee is regarded as an individual who performs certain activities under the guidance of another individual in exchange for money for a certain period of time. Therefore, once an individual is considered an employee as described in Article 157 TFEU, the articles of the treaties can be applied to him/her3. Article 157 TFEU provides an explicit commitment to equal pay for males and females, stating that equal pay without discrimination on the basis of gender denotes that the pay for similar kind of work must be calculated on the basis of the same unit of measurement for each employee. Equal pay also denotes tha t the pay for work at certain time rate must be equal for similar kind of job. With respect to Article 157 TFEU, pay comprises not only the basic remuneration committed to the employee, but also his/her overtime pay, extras, special advantages, travelling grants, rewards for appearing in training, termination payments and job-related pensions. Thus far, this has been constantly interpreted by legal bodies to imply that there must be no discrimination on the basis of gender over pay. With respect to any discrimination regarding pay, the European courts consider the link between the notion of pay which is articulated in Article 157 and the practiced social security system4. With respect to discrimination practices, there are two types of acts that can be performed by an organisation which are direct discrimination and indirect discrimination. In this context, it can be stated that Article 157 of the TFEU forbids both direct discrimination on the bases of gender in the area of pay and indirect discrimination. It is worth mentioning in this regard that direct discrimination happens when an individual is unequally treated on the basis of gender; for instance, when a woman is paid less than a man in a similar job. On the other hand, indirect discrimination refers to the discrimination which is the consequence of gender neutral norm, which tends to hamper an individual’s interests on the basis of sex5. With respect to the case of Kate, it can be observed that