Maria Kowalska, a former administrative officer of the City of Hamburg, requested payment of an extra allowance on the occasion of her retirement. The Collective Agreement for Federal Employees (Agreement) prescribed such allowanees for full-time employees only. Ms. Kowalska was a part-time employee and was therefore not entitled to the extra allowance according to the Agreement. The questions the Labor Court Hamburg referred to the Court of Justice of the European Communities were: (1) whether a collective bargaining agreement provision excluding part-time employees from certain allowances violates Article 119 of the Treaty Establishing the European Communities (equal pay for men and women), part-time employees being mostly female; and (2) if there is discrimination incompatible with EEC law, do part-time employees have a right to extra allowances proportionate to their working hours on the basis of Articles 119 and 117 (improvement and harmonization of workers’ conditions) and Council Directive 75/117 on equal pay for men and women, notwithstanding the provision to the contrary in the Agreement, or do freedom and autonomy in collective bargaining preclude such a right?