| Strathclyde RC v Wallace | |
| Court: | House of Lords |
| Citations: | [1998] 1 WLR 259 |
| Prior Actions: | [1996] IRLR 670 |
| Keywords: | Indirect discrimination, equal pay |
Strathclyde RC v Wallace [1998] 1 WLR 259 is a UK labour law case concerning indirect discrimination and equal pay.
Teachers wanted equal pay as head teachers when they had to ‘act up’ or fill in for head teachers (even though they were not formally appointed). Most of the teachers who acted up were in fact men.
The Tribunal held the women did have a claim, even though none of the factors relied were discriminatory (acting up teachers also being men). The Employment Appeal Tribunal overruled, and the women claimants were unsuccessful on appeal.
The House of Lords refused the teachers' claim. Lord Browne-Wilkinson held that ‘the purpose of the section 1 of the Equal Pay Act is to eliminate sex discrimination in pay not to achieve fair wages’.[1]