Chapter 11 Diversity and Discrimination

Diversity and discrimination is a relatively new development in German labour and employment law. While the general concept of equal treatment and a prohibition against gender discrimination have existed in German statutory law for a long time, most other discrimination laws were only introduced on 18 August 2006 in the General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG) which implemented three European Union (EU) anti-discrimination Directives (2000/43/EC, 2000/78/EC and 2002/73/EC). Since then, there have been some discrimination cases making the headlines, but in general discrimination legislation does not play such a significant role in Germany as it does in the U.S. or in the UK. This might be partly due to the fact that German courts are traditionally very reluctant to grant substantial compensatory awards. By virtue of its wording, the AGG furthermore does not apply to company pension schemes and to dismissals. However, the Federal Labour Court ruled that the AGG must be interpreted in accordance with the EU anti-discrimination Directives which prohibit discrimination surrounding dismissals and pension schemes and thus, the AGG is applicable in spite of the wording.