Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1 . Social policy - Men and women - Access to employment and working conditions - Equal treatment - Derogations - Protection of women - Measures to promote equal opportunities for men and women - Scope - Maintenance of all the special rights for women recognized in collective agreements - Excluded

( Council Directive 76/207, Arts 2 ( 3 ) and ( 4 ) and 5 ( 2 ) ( b ) )

2 . Social policy - Men and women - Access to employment and working conditions - Equal treatment - Implementation by the Member States - Responsibility of both sides of industry - Insufficient ( Council Directive 76/207, Arts 5 ( 2 ) ( b ) and 9 ( 1 ) )

Summary

1 . The exception provided for in Article 2 ( 3 ) of Directive 76/207 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women, which covers measures concerning the protection of women, particularly as regards pregnancy and maternity, may not apply to measures relating to the protection of women in capacities, such as those of older workers or parents, which are not specific to them .

The exception provided for in Article 2 ( 4 ) of that directive is specifically and exclusively designed to allow measures which, although discriminatory in appearance, are in fact intended to eliminate or reduce actual instances of inequality which may exist in the reality of social life .

Those provisions concern only specific derogations from the principle of equal treatment and cannot justify national legislation which authorizes, in general, the maintenance of special rights for women recognized in collective agreements concluded before the directive came into force .

2 . National legislation which, several years after the expiry of the period prescribed for the implementation of Directive 76/207, makes the two sides of industry responsible for removing certain instances of inequality without laying down any time-limit for compliance with that obligation does not adequately implement the directive .