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The House of Lords rejected the Court of Appeal's central argument that part-timers did not do the "same or broadly similar work" because full-time firefighters had additional duties such as educational and administrative tasks making their work a 'fuller wider job' than the part-timers.

• Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 - Regulation 5(1) provides that part-time workers must not be treated less favourably than comparable full-time workers
• It is now easier for part-time workers comparing their work with full-time workers to demand equal treatment under the Part-time Workers Regulations
• In deciding whether full and part-time jobs are comparable the question will be whether the jobs are broadly similar in preference to what differences exist
• Before claiming discrimination workers must decide whether notwithstanding differences, do they as part-time workers spend much of their time on "the core activity of the enterprise"? If the answer is no, then there is no possible claim to be made
• There is a defence to discrimination if it can be justified on objective grounds (regulation 5(2)(b))
• The possibility that differences in treatment being Objectively justified is not to be used to justify inevitable differences between part-time and full-time workers

Regulation 5(1) states that part-time workers must not be treated less favourably than comparable full-time workers and both sides agreed that retained fire fighters are workers (regulation 1(2) and part-time workers (regulation 2(2)) and that full-time fire fighters come under the Regulations (regulation 2(1)).

In order for part time workers to be able to rely on the less favourable treatment comparison of regulation 5(1) the conditions of regulation 2(4) needed to be satisfied in that:

• both groups must be working under the 'same type of contract' ( regulation 2(4)(a)(i)) and
• doing 'the same or broadly similar work'.

There is a defence to discrimination if it can be justified on objective grounds (regulation 5(2)(b)).

The question whether a full-time worker is employed under the same type of contract as a part-time worker is to be approached broadly ("one looks for a broad characteristic that separates one type from another. One ignores the many variations and differences within each type and looks instead for something that brings them all together within the same category. An over-precise view as to what makes one type of contract different from another would tend to undermine the purpose of the agreement.")

Regulation 2(4)(a)(ii) is interpreted as requiring that the comparison depends on the work on which the workers are actually engaged in with qualification, skills and experience being taken into account only as far as it relates to the work being done.

The differences between the jobs must defer to the main question of whether the work on which both groups are engaged is broadly similar.

Baroness Hale of Richmond stressed that, "the whole purpose of the PTWR is to prohibit unjustified discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment" and that "Regulation 2(3)(f) cannot be designed to allow employers to single out particular kinds of part-time working arrangements and treat them differently from the rest. The list in regulation 2(3) is clearly designed to define different categories of working relationship, within which part-time and full-time workers are to be regarded as comparable but between which they are not. Each category therefore contemplates the possibility of both full-time and part-time workers in that category. Thus the categories are designed to be mutually exclusive. It is accepted by all that categories (a) to (e) are indeed exclusive. "

The possibility that differences in treatment being objectively justified is not to be used to justify inevitable differences between part-time and full-time workers employment setting the threshold of comparability so high that only directly comparable situations where full-timer and part-timer work in exactly the same way but for the hours worked being 40 or 20 hours a week

As for the decision of the European Court of Justice in Wippel v Peek & Cloppenburg GmbH & Co KG [2005] ICR 1604 where a worker with no mutuality of obligation, working a zero hours contract wished to be paid according the maximum number of hours the worker might have worked; the work was found not to be comparable as the contract was so different. One was full-time the other having no fixed hours and therefore have little bearing on this case.

That both do some of the same work does not mean that the work looked at as a whole is the same or broadly similar. It would not be 'the same or broadly similar' where full-timers do the more important work and the part-timers are brought that which is more peripheral.

On the other hand where the full-timers and part-timers mainly work on the core work of the company, eve where full-timers completed extra tasks, the work could still be seen as being the same or broadly similar.

Work that is the same should be particularly weighted in comparison to differences that, "are the almost inevitable result of one worker working full-time and another working less than full-time (Baroness Hale of Richmond)."

Baroness Hale also referred to the contractual job description being important, where even this might only rarely happen it is written in a part-timer's contract that he can be asked to fulfil the same tasks of the full-timer.

It was recognised that it might be possible that less favourable treatment by the employer might possibly be justified by more favourable treatment elsewhere. The part-timers had argued that less favourable treatment and objective justification should be considered term by term.

The transcript of this case can be found (usually) at the Bailli or Employment Appeals websites  Here