Cargo Handling ordered to pay damages for discrimination

Three employees of the Cargo Handling Co. Ltd have been awarded a total of Lm24,000 damages by Mr Justice Philip Sciberras, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court.

The employees, Margaret Camilleri, Caroline Ebejer and Monica Gatt, had filed a writ against the company and had claimed that their employer was discriminating against them on the basis of gender.

In their writ the women declared they were employed as clerks by Cargo Handling and their conditions of employment were regulated by a collective agreement which did not make any distinction between the two categories of clerks. They claimed that their duties as clerks included their participation in a scheme run by the company with ship agents whereby company clerks would carry out work on board vessels after normal working hours. This scheme was run on a roster basis and those clerks who participated in the scheme were paid on an overtime basis.

Although the three women had long insisted to be included in the scheme, the company had continued to systematically exclude them and to allocate the work to male clerks. They said their rights had been upheld by a judgment of the appeals committee of the company but Cargo Handling had still failed to allow them to participate in the scheme.

All three women claimed that their employer was acting in an unjustified, abusive and illegal manner and that the company was discriminating against them on the basis of gender. The court was requested to rule that the company's actions were unjustifiable and that the three women were entitled to work overtime. The court was also requested to order Cargo Handling to pay damages.

Mr Justice Sciberras declared that in a judgment delivered in October of last year the court had upheld the women's claims and had ruled that the company had discriminated against them. The case was then put off so that the parties might reach an out-of-court settlement concerning the damages to which the three women were entitled. However, the parties had failed to reach such settlement and the court had to proceed to determine the case.

Mr Justice Sciberras noted that the three women and the company had differing opinions as to what would constitute equitable damages for the three women. The court felt that the rate of Lm1,000 per annum for each of three for each year in which they were not allowed to work overtime ought to be the basis of the compensation to which they were entitled. Consequently, each of the women was entitled to compensation of Lm8,000 for the period between August 1992 (the date on which the appeals committee's decision was taken) and June 2000 which was when the women were authorised to work overtime.

Cargo Handling was therefore ordered to pay Lm8,000 to each of the three women.