The Regulations, and the European Union Directive from which the Regulations were drafted, require employers to apply, to all part-timers, terms and conditions the concept of pro-rata. This means that part-time workers are legally entitled to the same benefits as full-time workers but in proportion to the hours that they work. The Department of Trade and Industry states that to comply with the regulations, employers should ensure that:
- The contractual holiday entitlement of part-time staff is pro-rata to that of full-time staff;
- Maternity and parental leave should be available to part-time and full-time staff;
- Career break schemes open to all workers unless objectively justified on other grounds than part-time working;
- There is no unfair selection for redundancy based on hours worked.
Whilst the Government has not introduced service qualifications for access to part-time workers' rights, service qualifications and remain in place for other employment rights, including unfair dismissal, redundancy etc. Who is covered by the Regulations?
The regulations cover workers rather than just employees. The regulations state that those covered are those working under either a contract of employment (employees) or
"any other contract, whether express or implied whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer f any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual". This new definition means that many home workers and agency workers will also be covered. Casual workers are also included in the regulations.
Pensions and part-timers
The issue of equal treatment of part-time workers in pension schemes has been the subject of many campaigns over the years. Until recently many employers excluded part-timers from occupational pension schemes or offered inferior schemes for part-timers. As most part-time workers are women it could be established that pension schemes could be in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act. Subsequently the rights of part-time workers has improved, over the last few years, as a result of court rulings. One of the most difficult issues to resolve was that of the right to backdated pension to over previous exclusion. In the case of Preston v Wolverhampton Health Care Trust (1998), the European Court of Justice (ECJ), ruled that previous decisions based on Equal Pay Act 197 allowing for 2 years backdating of entitlements were in breach of European Union (EU) law. In May 2000 the ECJ issued a ruling that part-time workers who had been excluded from pension schemes could claim back to 1976 or the beginning of their employment, whichever was later. However for part-time workers to benefit from this they will have to pay their own past contributions to get access to their own benefits. For many part-time, low paid workers this will be too costly. The new regulations put additional duties on employers in that;
- They must not discriminate between full and part-time workers on access to the scheme, unless it can be objectively justified, e.g. if employer costs far outweigh benefits paid to the worker.
- Pension benefits must be paid pro rata.
The department of Trade and Industry publish advice on this that will be useful to trade union reps dealing with these issues. | 
