Performance bonus built into salary counts for equal pay
The Industrial Tribunal awarded a former senior manager €54,092.20 after finding that bonuses paid to colleagues in the same grade as permanent pay rises, and never given to him, breached the equal pay rule in article 27 of Chapter 452.
On 13 February 2026 the Industrial Tribunal, chaired by Anna Mallia, held that performance bonuses an employer carried forward year after year as permanent salary increases count as pay for equal pay purposes. Denying those increases to one senior manager while colleagues in the same grade kept them breached article 27 of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (Chapter 452 of the Laws of Malta). The tribunal ordered the authority to pay him €54,092.20.
The facts
In G.A. vs L-Awtorita' Għat-Trasport F'Malta, the complainant worked as a senior manager with the Authority for Transport in Malta until he retired. Senior managers were not covered by a collective agreement. His contract gave him a performance bonus of up to 15% of annual gross salary, based on agreed objectives and key performance indicators.
Apart from cost-of-living increases, his basic salary never rose. Near the end of his employment he learned that other senior managers earned more, and he argued that they had received increases he never got.
The authority replied that he carried less responsibility than other senior managers, had no staff reporting to him and did work of a mostly clerical nature. It first also pleaded that the claim was out of time and that he was no longer its employee when he filed it, but it withdrew both pleas.
During the proceedings the authority paid him €23,479.48 in arrears on a separate complaint about managers in a lower grade earning as much as he did. What remained was the gap between his pay and that of other senior managers.
What the court held
The tribunal first rejected the claim for the performance bonus itself. The bonus depended on agreed objectives, none were ever agreed, and he never asked about it although his contract allowed him to. The tribunal held that it could not set those objectives itself.
It then turned to the pay rises. The authority's own table of senior managers showed that colleagues received performance bonuses that did not lapse at the end of the year but stayed in their salaries. He alone received nothing beyond cost-of-living increases.
The tribunal noted that the definition of discriminatory treatment in article 2 lists grounds such as sex, pregnancy and political opinion, none of which applied. But article 27 sets a general rule, not tied to one kind of discrimination: “Impjegati fl-istess klassi ta’ impjieg ghandhom id-dritt ghall-istess rata ta’ rimunerazzjoni ghal xoghol ta’ valur ugwali” (employees in the same class of employment are entitled to the same rate of remuneration for work of equal value).
Different treatment of people in the same situation can be justified on an objective and reasonable basis. The authority's basis was that he had no staff and less responsibility. The tribunal rejected it, because the authority kept him in the same grade and brought no evidence that he could not carry the same responsibilities as his colleagues.
A bonus paid once rewards a good year, but a bonus that becomes a permanent increase keeps paying in later years whether or not the work differs. The tribunal held that such an increase, given to employees of the same class and withheld from one, is discriminatory under article 27. It added that the authority's own collective agreements treat a performance bonus as covering a single year, so the error was not the complainant's fault.
On damages, the complainant compared his earnings with five senior managers. The tribunal removed each comparator's first performance bonus, which it did not treat as a pay rise, and took the average difference of €54,092.20.
It refused to add the 14% bonus he sought on top, because a performance bonus is not an automatic right for any worker. The tribunal ordered the authority to pay him €54,092.20 and left each party to bear its own costs.
Why it matters
An employer that rewards performance by adding permanent increments to salary, rather than one-off payments, should expect those increments to be treated as pay when a same-grade employee compares earnings. An employer relying on differences in responsibility needs evidence of them, not just a job description. Employees should ask for the performance review their contract provides, because the tribunal will not set the targets for them.
Where it sits
Article 27 states the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. The tribunal read it as a free-standing rule for all employees in the same class, not only a rule against unequal pay between men and women. It applied the test of the Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction) (26 March 2010): whether employees in the same grade were treated differently from the complainant in salary or bonus.
The tribunal also relied on article 26, which counts less favourable terms of payment for the same work or work of equal value as discriminatory treatment. It read “rata ta’ rimunerazzjoni” (rate of remuneration) with the definition of wages in article 2 of the Act and the definition of remuneration in a 1951 convention of the International Labour Organisation, which covers the basic wage and any additional payment arising from the employment.
Source
Industrial Tribunal, 2026/3155, 13 February 2026.