Constitutional Court rules pension system discriminates against part-time workers

In line with a ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in November, Spain¡¯s Constitutional Court found that the system used by the country¡¯s Social Security system to calculate the pension rights of part-time workers was discriminatory.

¡°The differences in the treatment applied to the calculation of periods of when contributions are lacking that part-time workers continue to suffer with respect to full-time workers lack reasonable justification,¡± the Constitutional Court ruled.

The Court also said that since the majority of part-time workers are women (about 80 percent), the treatment is also tantamount to an ¡°indirect form of gender discrimination.¡±

In response, the Social Security system said it ¡°would look for alternatives to resolve the problem.¡±

The ECJ¡¯s judgment stemmed from a case brought by a Spanish woman who had worked for four hours a week as a cleaner for 18 years. Her request for a contributory pension was denied by the Social Security system because, it argued, she had not fulfilled the minimum of 15 years¡¯ worth of contributions.

Under the current system of calculating rights, the woman would have had to work for 100 years to reach the level of contributions required.

The Constitutional Court¡¯s ruling stemmed from a question tabled by the Galician regional High Court about a woman who was also denied a contributory pension after having made contributions for 18 years, 11 of them as a part-time worker.

However, the Court said its ruling did not apply to previous similar cases in which part-time workers had their requests for a contributory pension denied.