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Shifts victory for working mothers

Working mothers were handed the legal right to refuse inconvenient shifts yesterday.



A ground-breaking tribunal ruling will let any woman with young children claim she does not have to work early, late or at night.



The new rights, under sexual discrimination laws, will be available to hundreds of thousands of women in both the public and private sectors.



Firms with only small staffs will be exempt, but other employers will face major problems and extra costs trying to cater for mothers on their payroll.



There is also likely to be anger and resentment among male colleagues and childless women who have to do the unpopular shifts. The decision is the culmination of a three-year sex discrimination battle between former PC Michelle Chew and Avon and Somerset police.



Miss Chew, who had just split up with her policeman husband, asked to work the same days each week so her two children could go to a nursery. Her bosses refused, insisting that all officers had to work varied shifts. But an employment appeal tribunal has decided that the force's system breached the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.



It said women are more likely than men to be looking after children, so anything that disadvantages those with child care responsibilities is discrimination against women.



The ruling will now form part of tribunal case law.



It will be closely followed by other tribunals hearing similar claims unless a higher court - the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords or ultimately European judges --decides to overturn it.



In practice, the ruling will benefit fathers as well - no employer would be able to concede the right not to work shifts to a mother and refuse a father in the same position without risking legal action and a compensation bill.



Miss Chew, 36, who left the Avon and Somerset force on health grounds earlier this year, could now receive hundreds of thousands in compensation.



She said last night: 'I am very relieved. It is brilliant that I can now hold my head up high and say: "I was rightî.



'This is not about letting parents pick and choose to do only the nice shifts, it's about making it possible for them to work at all.'



Industry chiefs warned of the huge problems the ruling would bring to employers like other police forces, the NHS, local authorities, factories, IT firms and many shops and offices.



They said the tribunal has handed sweeping new rights to working mothers at a time when the Government is fighting shy of helping them by imposing heavy new regulatory burdens on industry.



Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt will announce this week that mothers are not to be given the automatic right to work part-time, despite Government sympathy and pressure from feminists.



Smaller firms, however, will be relieved to find they will not be affected by the Chew case. The appeal tribunal said its ruling applies only in cases where there is a large enough pool of available workers to show that mothers are suffering discrimination.



The Chew ruling will, however-pile extra costs on police budgets already swollen by huge bills for compensation awards in sex and race discrimination cases, currently totalling £20million a year.



Other women are certain to follow Miss Chew's lead and more officers will have to be employed or paid extra to make up for those who no longer have to work shifts.



Norman Brennan, a London transport police officer who runs a crime victims' charity, said: 'Police work is demanding and if you take the job you have to accept shift work is involved.



'That applies if you have a family before or after you join. You have to be part of a team and if you won't do that it is unfair to the rest of the service.'



Ruth Lea, of the Institute of Directors, warned: 'This will breed resentment among men - who often don't mention it because they are usually anxious not to appear sexist - and among childless women. There will be a backlash.



'It is fair enough to want to be able to organise childcare, but the idea that women are not going to do shift work is taking the Michael out of sex equality.



'If women are going to take the same jobs as men they must do the same work.'



The Chew case cements the rights of working mothers that have been building through a series of tribunal ruling which had alarmed industry bosses.



One, in 1998, found that a woman train driver on London Underground had suffereddiscrimination because her need to care for her son meant she could not follow instructions to work early and late shifts.



The Chew decision sweeps away a string of quibbles that have surrounded similar claims in the past.



Stephen Cavalier, of employment law specialists Thompsons Solicitors, said: 'This is another significant step for working mothers and the principle of work-life balance. It is something that employers will have to consider.'



Legal experts said the ruling is unlikely to be overturned by a higher court - in the past senior judges have shown themselves reluctant to undo radical precedents set in employment tribunals.

COMMENTS

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DeadCityZombie
16:34 Jan 25 2014

I understand the ruling but, I feel sorry for the workers who will be forced to take up the slack.



Once again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

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