GENDER DISCRIMINATION continues to be a problem for women in the workplace even though equality legislation has been in place here for 32 years, according to Equality Authority chief executive Renée Dempsey.
Ms Dempsey said it was essential that the standards of equal treatment achieved to date be improved for women workers, particularly those who are pregnant.
“We need to ensure that we retain and enable the contribution women workers have and will continue to make to productivity and economic recovery by eradicating harassment, discrimination and unequal treatment for women and all workers,” she said.
Ms Dempsey’s comments came following what she described as two significant gender equality decisions by the Equality Tribunal and the Labour Court.
In the first case, the Labour Court disallowed a property company’s appeal against an Equality Tribunal decision to award one of its former employees, who was discriminated against, harassed and dismissed from her job, €30,000.
The award was made to Zena Boyle, a former housing manager of a student accommodation complex in Donegal operated by the Ely Property Group Ltd.
Ms Boyle told the Equality Tribunal that she was harassed by her line manager shortly after she started with the company in 2005 because she did not follow instructions to act in what she considered a reckless, aggressive and occasionally unlawful manner.
Ely said there were issues around her performance and conduct that led to her dismissal.
The tribunal heard that when a problem arose with residents of the complex, the manager, who has since left the company, told Ms Boyle she was useless, couldn’t control the students and that what they needed was a man to sort them out and that “he would come down from Dublin and punch them in the face”.
In September 2005, Ms Boyle was instructed to organise the recruitment of a live-in caretaker for the complex, who eventually turned out to be her replacement.
Equality officer Vivian Jackson said he was satisfied the manager believed that as a woman, Ms Boyle was not capable of using physical force to deal with troublesome students at the complex and awarded Ms Boyle €30,000 for the distress she suffered due to discrimination and loss of earnings.
In another case, a woman who said her relationship with her employer seriously deteriorated after she became pregnant was awarded €10,000 by the Equality Tribunal.
Regina Cruise, a former employee of Nail Zone Ltd, said she was discriminated against, harassed and dismissed from her job on grounds of gender. She said her employer had switched her day off so that it coincided with her ante-natal appointments and contacted her doctor directly to query her medical certificate. The employer also changed the method of calculating her pay and annual leave.
Nail Zone rejected Ms Cruise’s claims and said she had failed to provide any evidence that she received any less favourable treatment or harassment.
Mr Jackson found that the respondent discriminated against the complainant on grounds of gender, harassed her on grounds of gender and that a prima facie case of discriminatory dismissal on grounds of gender has been established.
He ordered that Ms Cruise be given €10,000 by way of compensation for the distress suffered by her. He also said Nail Zone should develop a policy on harassment and that a formal grievance procedure should be introduced.
In another case, an Irish woman was awarded €5,000 for discrimination by her employer, Bomac Ltd, trading as Carboni’s Café, on the grounds of her nationality. Lyndsey Glennon was also awarded €1,000 for victimisation.
The tribunal heard Ms Glennon’s employment was terminated in April 2007, shortly after she took a case to a rights commissioner in relation to holiday payments. She was told there was not enough work for her.
Within days, however, two new employees who were not of Irish nationality took up jobs with the café. She told the tribunal she was barred from the premises and her former colleagues were forbidden to have contact with her after she took her complaint to the tribunal.