Australian Iron & Steel Pty. Ltd. v. Banovic

The case concerned a challenge to the employer’s retrenchment policy. The applicant alleged that the criterion was discriminatory as substantially higher proportion of men could comply than women. Although the retrenchment applied to both sexes, there were fewer women in positions of seniority who were immune from the retrenchment because the employer had a history of discriminating in its hiring decisions. As such, the court found indirect discrimination because the retrenchment policy unlawfully maintained discriminatory circumstances.

Topics

• Employment discrimination
• Gender discrimination

Geographical location

• Australia and Oceania
• Australia

Year

• 1989

External URL

• Australian Iron & Steel Pty. Ltd. v. Banovic

Court

• High Court of Australia

Type

• Domestic Case Law

Jurisdiction

• Australia