Industrial Relations Law Bulletin - 646 - The Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 - In this feature we undertake a detailed examination of the domestic Regulations that purport to implement the EC Part-time Work Directive ("the Directive" - No. 97-81), and which came into force on 1 July. According to the Government, the basic aim of the Regulations is to make it unlawful for employers to treat part-time workers - the vast majority of whom are women - less favourably than comparable full-time workers, in respect of all their terms and conditions of employment, unless such treatment can be objectively justified. It is claimed that the Regulations thus "simplify" the legal position of part-timers, who would previously have had to prove indirect sex discrimination, contrary to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 or the Equal Pay Act 1970 and Article 141 (formerly Article 119) of the Treaty of Rome, to gain equal treatment. As we seek to demonstrate, however, the Regulations could in many respects turn out to be less effective than those pre-existing provisions. We also identify a number of areas in which the purported implementation of the Directive is arguably defective.