Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T17:35:56.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Strategic Litigation for Gender Equality in the Workplace and Legal Opportunity Structures in Four European Countries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2013

Gesine Fuchs
Gesine Fuchs*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, CH 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Legal mobilization in the courts has emerged as an increasingly important social movement strategy, which complements other political strategies. This paper explores legal and institutional factors that can account for the varying levels of legal mobilization in countries with a civil law system. It examines the different legal opportunity structures (LOS) (such as judicial access and material and procedural law) and the extent to which strategic litigation has been employed by trade unions and other social actors to promote equal pay in four European countries: Switzerland, Germany, France, and Poland. While every component of LOS influences legal mobilization, legal factors and legal context alone are not sufficient to explain the observed variations. Rather, they constitute an important general framework in which other social and political factors, such as norms about gender roles, equality, and litigation, are also significant. Two issues seem to be especially relevant and have emerged as a rewarding field of analysis—the role of media coverage and organizational action frames.

Résumé

La mobilisation juridique dans les tribunaux est devenue une stratégie de mouvement social de plus en plus importante, qui complète d’autres stratégies politiques. Le présent article explore les facteurs juridiques et institutionnels qui peuvent entrer en compte pour les divers niveaux de mobilisation juridique dans des pays possédant un système de droit civil. Il examine les différentes structures des opportunités juridiques (SOJ) (comme le recours judiciaire et la procédure et le droit en la matière) et la mesure dans laquelle des procédures judiciaires stratégiques ont été employées par des syndicats et d’autres acteurs sociaux afin de promouvoir une égalité des salaires dans quatre pays européens : la Suisse, l’Allemagne, la France, et la Pologne. Même si chaque élément des SOJ influence la mobilisation juridique, les facteurs d’ordre juridique et le contexte juridique ne peuvent à eux seuls expliquer les variations observées. Ils sont plutôt un cadre général important dans lequel d’autres facteurs sociaux et politiques, comme les normes à propos des rôles sexuels, de l’égalité, et des procédures judiciaires, sont eux aussi importants. Deux points semblent particulièrement pertinents et se révèlent être un domaine d’analyse enrichissant—le rôle de la couverture médiatique et les cadres d’action organisationnels.

Keywords

equal payFranceGermanylegal mobilizationlegal opportunity structuresPolandSwitzerlandégalité des salairesFranceAllemagnemobilisation juridiquestructures des opportunités juridiquesPologneSuisse
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 28 , Special Issue 2: Gender Equality, Legal Mobilization, and Feminism in a Multilevel European System , August 2013 , pp. 189 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 McCann, Michael W., ed., Law and Social Movements (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).Google Scholar

2 The year with the first equal pay court judgment in France (Cass. soc., 29 octobre 1996, n° 92-43.680).

3 The year the German Law on Equal Treatment came into force.

4 These persons were found via a web or newspaper search or by recommendation of interviewees.

5 See the discussion of these directives in the introduction to this special issue.

6 Eurostat, Europe in figures. Eurostat yearbook 2010 (Luxembourg, 2010), 307.

7 Calculated from Eurobarometer 72.2 (2009); the statement that the European Union should deal “very” or “fairly” urgently with the problem of the pay gap was affirmed by 85 percent of the respondents in Germany, 89 percent in France and 75 percent in Poland.

8 Gesine Fuchs, “Promising paths to pay equity: A comparison of the potentials of strategic litigation, collective bargaining and anti-discrimination authorities in Switzerland, Germany and France,” http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1664468.

9 E.g., McCann, Michael W., Rights at work: Pay equity and the politics of legal mobilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Vanhala, Lisa, Making Rights a Reality? Disability Rights Activists and Legal Mobilization (Cambridge University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andersen, Ellen A., Out of the closets and into the courts: Legal opportunity structure and gay rights litigation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).Google Scholar

10 For an overview, see Snow, David A., “Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields, ” in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, eds. Snow, David A., Soule, Sarah A., and Kriesi, Hanspeter (Malden; Oxford; Carlton: Blackwell, 2004), 380–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Andersen, Cf.; Hilson, Chris, “New social movements: the role of legal opportunity, ” Journal of European Public Policy, no. 2 (2002): 238–55Google Scholar; Vanhala, Lisa, “Fighting discrimination through litigation in the UK: the social model of disability and the EU anti‐discrimination directive, ” Disability & Society 21, no. 5 (2006): 551–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans Case, Rhonda and Givens, Terri E., “Re-engineering Legal Opportunity Structures in the European Union? The Starting Line Group and the Politics of the Racial Equality Directive, ” Journal of Common Market Studies 48, no. 2 (2010): 221–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Kitschelt, Herbert, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies,” British Journal of Political Science (1986): 57–85, 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Overview in Kriesi, Hanspeter, “Political Context and Opportunity,” in Snow, et al, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, 67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Although Andersen included alliance-conflict systems in the political arena in her concept.

14 Case, Evans and Givens; Alter, Karen J. and Vargas, Jeannette, “Explaining variation in the use of European litigation strategies—European community law and British gender equality policy, ” Comparative Political Studies 32, no. 4 (2000): 452–84.Google Scholar

15 Evans Case and Givens, “Re-engineering Legal Opportunity Structures.”

16 Sandra Lavenex, Cf., “Switzerland’s Flexible Integration in the EU: A Conceptual Framework, ” Swiss Political Science Review 15, no. 4 (2009): 547–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sciarini, Pascal, Fischer, Alex, and Nicolet, Sarah, “How Europe Hits Home: evidence from the Swiss case, ” Journal of European Public Policy, no. 3 (2004): 353–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Fuchs, Gesine, “Using Strategic Litigation for Women’s Rights: Political Restrictions in Poland and Achievements of the Women’s Movement, ” European Journal of Women’s Studies, 20(1), 21–43.Google Scholar

18 See for example the German Basic Law, Art. 97, 1: “Judges shall be independent and subject only to the law.”

19 Wesel, Uwe, “hM, ” in Aufklärungen über Recht: Zehn Beiträge zur Entmythologisierung, (Frankfurt a.M: suhrkamp, 1981), 14–40.Google Scholar

20 Schott, Petra, “The European Union: A Trailblazer for Equality,” in Between success and disappointment. Gender equality policies in an enlarged Europe, eds. Baer, Susanne and Hoheisel, Miriam, Gender kompetent 4 (Bielefeld: Kleine, 2008), 27–45.Google Scholar

21 Alter and Vargas, “Explaining variation in the use of European litigation strategies”; Cichowski, Rachel A., “Women’s Rights, the European court and supranational constitutionalism,” Law & Society Review (2004): 489–512 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cichowski, Rachel A., The European court, civil society and European integration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Cf. Art. 267 TFEU, Stone Sweet, Alec, “The European Court of Justice and the judicialization of EU governance,” Living Reviews in European Governance, no. 2 (2010): 1–50.Google Scholar

23 Schott, “The European Union: A Trailblazer for Equality,” 39.

24 Schiek, Dagmar, “Torn between Arithmetic and Substantive Equality? Perspectives on Equality in German Labour Law,” The International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, no. 2 (2002): 149–67, 159f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 2000/43/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, 2002/73/EC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions, 2004/113/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services.

26 As well as some counter mobilization against positive measures: C-450/93, 17.10.1995, Rec. 1995, P. I-3051, C-409/95, 11.11.1997, Rec. 1997, p. I-6363 and Badeck, C-158/97, 28.3.2000, Rec. 2000, p. I-1875; cf. Kodré, Petra and Müller, Henrike, “Shifting Policy Frames: EU Equal Treatment Norms and Domestic Discourses in Germany, ” in Gendering Europeanisation, ed. Liebert, Ulrike (Bruxelles usw: Peter Lang, 2003), 83–116.Google Scholar

27 There is only anecdotal evidence that this strategic litigation was brought forward mainly by lawyers with a good nose for suitable cases. No systematic research exists to date on why litigation featuring indirect discrimination was pursued in Germany in this period. See interviews D1, D4, and D6.

28 Leah Seppanen Anderson, Cf., “European Union Gender Regulations in the East: The Czech and Polish Accession Process, ” East European Politics and Societies, no. 1 (2006): 101–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Charlotte Bretherton, Cf., “Gender mainstreaming and EU enlargement: swimming against the tide?” Journal of European Public Policy, no. 1 (2001): 60–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Frank Schimmelfennig, Cf. and Sedelmeier, Uwe, eds., The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).Google Scholar

31 Dz. U. Nr. 254 poz. 1700 (Ustawa z dnia 3 grudnia 2010r. o wdrożeniu niektórych przepisów Unii Europejskiej w zakresie równego traktowania. (Law of 3rd December 2010 on the transposition of several regulations of the European Union concerning equal treatment).

32 Bodnar, Adam and Śledzińska, Anna, Country Report Poland 2011 for the Annual Report 2011 (Brussels: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2012)Google Scholar, chapter 5, working version.

33 Alexandra Gerber, Cf., “The letter versus the spirit: Barriers to meaningful implementation of gender equality policy in Poland, ” Women’s Studies International Forum 33 (2010): 30–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Bojarski, Lukasz, “The Role of the Nongovernmental Sector in Pursuing Reform of the Legal Aid System: The Case of Poland, ” in Making Legal Aid a Reality: A Resource Book for Policy Makers and Civil Society, ed. Public Interest Law Institute (Budapest: Pilnet, 2009), 127–38.Google Scholar Interviews PL 16, 64f, and PL 18, 185–92; Interview PL 4, 15.

35 Katell Berthou, Cf., “New Hopes for French Anti-Discrimination Law, ” The International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 19, no. 1 (2003)Google Scholar; Miné, Michel and Marchand, Daniel, Le Droit du travail en pratique, Références (Paris: Eyrolles, 2008), 343–45 and chapter XVIIIGoogle Scholar; Latraverse, Sophie, France: Executive summary of the country report on measures to combat discrimination (2005), 1.Google Scholar

36 Berthou, “New Hopes for French Anti-Discrimination Law,” 111, 115. Interviews F3: 34f, 40; F4: 42.

37 Miné and Marchand, Le Droit du travail en pratique, 373f.

38 Cf. HALDE—Haute Autorité de Lutte contre les Discriminations et pour l’Égalité, ed., Rapports annuels 2005–2010 (Paris, 2006–2010). Complaints skyrocketed from 1,410 in 2005 to 12,467 in 2010. Ethnic discrimination has been the most important reason for the increase. Gender discrimination was claimed in 6 percent (2005) to 10 percent (2010) of all cases; cf. Rapport Annuel (2010):19.

39 Stasi, Bernard, Vers la haute autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l’égalité : rapport au Premier ministre (Paris: La documentation francaise, 2004).Google Scholar

40 The Défenseur des droits has been the French ombudsman institution since mid 2011. Several different independent bodies have been merged into it, such as the Médiateur de la République, le Défenseur des enfants, la Commission nationale de déontologie de la sécurité, and the HALDE, cf. www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/

41 Cf. Loi organique no. 2011-333 du 29 mars 2011 relative au Défenseur des droits.

42 Article 8,3 of the constitution reads: “Men and women shall have equal rights. The law shall ensure their equality, both in law and in practice, most particularly in the family, in education, and in the workplace. Men and women shall have the right to equal pay for work of equal value.” It is important to note that it was thanks to an act of direct democracy that the equal rights amendment was introduced.

43 Claudia Kaufmann, “Hintergrund und Entstehung des Gesetzes,” in Kommentar zum Gleichstellungsgesetz, 1–29, Schriftenreihe Schweizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund SGB (Basel: Helbing Lichtenhahn, 2009).

44 RS 151.1, Gender Equality Act (GEA).

45 For more details, see Englaro, Laura, Das Ausmass des autonomen Nachvollzugs von EG-Recht durch die Schweiz im Kontext des Schweizerischen Gleichstellungsgesetzes (Basel: Europa-Institut der Universität Basel, 2004).Google Scholar

46 Cf. www.leg.ch/procedure/ch.

47 Heidi Stutz, Marianne Schär Moser, and Elisabeth Freivogel, “Evaluation portant sur l’efficacité de la loi sur l’égalité. Rapport de synthèse” (2005): V.

48 Gesine Fuchs, “Suisse: Droits des femmes—un chemin libéral vers l’égalité?” Chronique internationale de l’IRES, no. 113 (2008).

49 Information on criteria that determine which cases enter the judicial databases was not available for the other countries, e.g., from the database operators. Because gender pay equity cases are rare, some experts estimated that these processes were reported at above-average rates compared, for example, to unfair dismissal cases. In France, lawyers refer mainly not to databases but to specialized periodicals; my interviewees assumed that nearly every case would be reviewed by the respective lawyers as a service to the profession.

50 Cf. www.gleichstellungsgesetz.ch and www.leg.ch. These websites are designed as empowerment tools for employees and reveal that about 50 percent of all cases before the conciliation commission go to court.

51 Deutsche Post AG v Elisabeth Sievers (C-270/97) and Brunhilde Schrage (C-271/97), 10 February 2000, Rec. 2000, p. I-00929; see also Schiek, 165f. Concerning the back payment: personal communication with Klaus Lörcher, former trade union lawyer, 9 June 2011. The sum is considerably lower than the 500 million euros circulated in the press.

52 Interviews D1: 67, 78; D4: 40; D2: 28; D11: 161–165; D12: 85.

53 Cass. soc., 29 octobre 1996, n° 92–43.680, Société Delzongle c/ Mme Ponsolle. The employer shall ensure equal remuneration for all employees of either sex, provided that the employees in question are placed in the same situation.

54 See for example, Cass. soc., 21–06–2006, n° 05–41.774, caisse régionale d’assurance maladie d’Ile-de-France (CRAMIF), F-D and Cass. soc., 26–06-2008, n° 06–46.204, société Sermo Montaigu, F-P; cf. Marie-Thérèse Lanquetin, “Égalité de rémunération entre les hommes et les femmes pour une meme travail ou pour un travail de valeur égale. Fonctions différentes. Absence de valeur égale,” Droit social, no. 11 (2008): 1132; and interview F1 : 40.

55 Wyrok SN z 22.2.2007r., I PK 242/06, cf. www.monitorprawapracy.pl.

56 For retirement, see for example SN 19.11.08, I PZP 4/08.

57 See www.gleichstellungsgesetz.ch/html_de/103N1007.html. Final verdicts VK.1996.00011, VK.1996.00013, VK.1996.00015, and VK.1996.00017, 22 January 2001, Entscheiddatenbank des Verwaltungsgerichts Zürich. For the first case, see http://www.gleichstellungsgesetz.ch/html_de/103N1191.html. Final verdict of Federal Tribunal: ATF 125 I 14, 8 December 1998.

58 Calculated from European Social Survey (ESS), round 1 (2002) to round 5 (2010).

59 Interviews F4: 411f., F3: 70, F9: 17, 38.

60 For Switzerland: Freivogel, Elisabeth, “Lücken und Tücken in der Anwendung des Gleichstellungsgesetzes, ” Aktuelle Juristische Praxis, no. 11 (2006): 45f.Google Scholar

61 Cf. Berthou, 10, Wallace, Chloe J., “European integration and legal culture: indirect sex discrimination in the French legal system, ” Legal Studies, vol. 13, no. 3 (1999), 397–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Cf. Cour de Cassation, chambre sociale, 21. June 2006, no. 05–41.774, Caisse régionale d’assurance maladie d’Ile-de-France CRAMIF and similar cases decided in 2006.

63 Cour d’appel de Paris—Pôle 5, Chambre 5, arrêt du 11 juin 2010, no. 145 (Organisme de Retraite et de Prévoyance des Employés des Sociétés de Course c/ Burgund); see also Interview F2, 18a.

64 Interviews F5, 17f, 23-43; F1, 6f, 17f., 25-33.

65 Cf. survey09.ituc-csi.org/survey.php?IDContinent=4&IDCountry=CHE&Lang=EN, visited 10 December 2011.

66 Cf. interviews D1: 36-41; D2: 14; D9: 117-125.

67 Fuchs, Cf., “Promising paths”; Winter, Regine, ed., Frauen verdienen mehr. Zur Neubewertung von Frauenarbeit im Tarifsystem. (Berlin: edition sigma, 1994)Google Scholar; Carl, Andrea-Hilla and Krehnke, Anna, “Aufwertung frauendominierter Tätigkeiten im öffentlichen Dienst, ” Streit, no. 2 (2002): 66–73.Google Scholar

68 David Ost, Cf., “Trade Union Revitalisation in Poland: Trends and Prospects, ” in Trade union revitalisation. Trends and prospects in 34 countries, ed. Phelan, Craig (Oxford: Lang, 2007), 303–17Google Scholar; CBOS-Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, “Związki zawodowe i naruszenia praw pracowniczych” (Trade Unions and the Violations of workers’ rights) (Warsaw, 2010).

69 Cf. interviews PL5 and PL3.

70 Ferree Marx, Myra et al., Shaping Abortion Discourse. Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Neidhardt, Friedhelm, “Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen: Einleitung, ” in Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen, ed. Friedhelm, Neidhardt (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994), 7–41, 25–27.Google Scholar

72 For media reporting on civil litigation, see Robbennolt, Jennifer K. and Studebaker, Christina A., “News media reporting on civil litigation and its influence on civil justice decision making, ” Law and Human Behavior 27 , no. 1 (2003)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; for equal pay see McCann, Rights at work, 58–68.

73 For more details and results, see Gesine Fuchs, “Discursive Opportunity Structures and Legal Mobilization for Gender Equality in Four Countries 1996-2006,” ssrn.com/abstract=1954028, 17–30.

74 Lisa Vanhala, Cf., “Anti-discrimination policy actors and their use of litigation strategies: the influence of identity politics, ” Journal of European Public Policy 16 , no. 5 (2009): 742–44.Google Scholar

75 Blankenburg, Erhard, Mobilisierung des Rechts: eine Einführung in die Rechtssoziologie (Berlin, usw.: Springer, 1995), 29ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Felstiner, William, Abel, Richard, and Sarat, Austin, “The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming, ” Law & Society Review 15 (1981).Google Scholar

76 For Switzerland: Fuchs, “Discursive Opportunity Structures,” 31–4.

77 For Germany: Wesel, Uwe, Der Gang nach Karlsruhe: Das Bundesverfassungsgericht in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (München: Karl Blessing Verlag, 2004).Google Scholar