The Equality Tribunal recently published 26 Decisions taken under the Employment Equality Acts, just 5 of which were successful. Awards for the successful cases ranged from €1500 to €16630.

As has been common for some time, the majority of complaints, successful and unsuccessful from a complainant's point of view, were lodged by those of Eastern European origin and most complained of discriminatory dismissal and other mistreatment on the race ground.

An exceptional case is number 4 below, involving a complaint on grounds of age discrimination in relation to a professorship vacancy at UCD.


EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY DECISIONS UPHELD OR PART-UPHELD:


1. DEC-E2010-237: An Employee -v- An Employer

Grounds / Issues: Less Favourable Treatment, Race, Conditions of Employment, Dismissal.
Award: €3,000 for Discriminatory Dismissal

The complainant is an Estonian national and was employed by the respondent as a Broadband installer from the 15th January 2007 until 14th of August 2008. There were about 30 employees and less than half of them were Irish, the remainder were mainly from Poland Lithuania. The complainant's case was that the respondent discriminated against him in relation to his conditions of employment in that he failed to provide him with a written contract of employment; the van provided to him was in bad condition and was not taxed; he did not receive holiday pay or his final week's pay.

He also submitted that his dismissal was discriminatory in that no procedures were applied to his dismissal he was simply told that there was no work for him. He said that he was dismissed on the day he was due to go on holidays. He submitted that this was significant because he believes the employer did not want to pay him for holidays. After his holidays he returned to the company to get his holiday pay and his final week's wages and was paid only one week despite the fact that he was owed over 3 weeks wages. He also submitted that he was unfairly selected for dismissal in that an Irish employee who was there less than a month and doing the same work as he was doing was retained in the employment.

In relation to his harassment complaint, the complainant stated the manager of the company made remarks about the non-Irish nationals in the belief that they could not understand English. He stated that the Irish workers were treated better and were given the easier jobs in comparison to the non-Irish nationals who were given jobs which lasted longer.

The respondent did not attend the hearing or respond to the Tribunal when the complaint was served on him or when the Tribunal sought a submission in response to the complainant's claim.

Dismissing the other claims, the Equality Officer found that the respondent did discriminatorily dismiss the complainant on the race ground and awarded €3000.
http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/index.asp?locID=181&docID=2525


2. DEC-E2010-250: 7 Employees -v- An Employer

Grounds / Issues: Discriminatory Treatment, Discriminatory Dismissal, Victimisation, Victimisatory Dismissal, Race
Award: €16,630 for Victimisation for Mr Tomas Vanagas.

This case involved several employees from Lithuania and Latvia. The respondent did not engage with the Tribunal in advance of the hearing.

Only the third-named complainant gave credible evidence that his dismissal took place immediately following the respondent's receipt of notification of proceedings under the Employment Equality Acts, issued 26 April 2006. He was awarded €16630, whereas the others had their claims dismissed for want of prosecution.
http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/index.asp?locID=181&docID=2526


3. DEC-E2010-257: An Employee -v- An Employer

Grounds / Issues: Dismissal, Conditions of Employment, Health and Safety, Indirect Discrimination.
Award: €1,500 for Discrimination.

The complainant is a Ukrainian national who submitted that he was employed by the respondent for six months from September 2006 to February 2007. He submitted that he was discriminated against by the respondent in relation to his dismissal and in relation to the failure of the respondent to provide him with a health and safety statement in a language likely to be understood by him, or any health and safety statement at all.

The respondent submitted that it is a small family firm which is a scaffolding company. The respondent submitted that the complainant was dismissed because he proved to be unsatisfactory in his position. It submitted that, on several occasions, he dropped scaffolding boards and poles on site and endangered the safety of his co-workers. It submitted that he was forgetful and appeared nervous and ill at ease. It submitted that his co-workers complained about him. Mr A said he brought the complainant up on these dangerous work practices several times and told him he was not capable of doing the duties he had to do. He said that he made several attempts to explain this to the complainant and eventually told him that it would be best for him if he found other employment.

The Equality Officer was satisfied that the complainant was dismissed because of poor work performance and that the dismissal was unrelated to any query he made in relation to pay.

However, referring to the case of Campbell Catering v Aderonke Rasaq at the Labour Court, the Equality Officer found the dismissal procedure to be discriminatory because the employer did not take account of the poor levels of English and awarded €1500.
http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/index.asp?locID=181&docID=2527


4. DEC-E2010-261: An Employee -v- An Employer

Grounds / Issues: Age, Access to Employment, Promotion.
Award: €5,000 for Discriminatory Treatment.

The complainant started work for the respondent in 1978. He is the Head of School of Information and Library Studies at UCD. In September 2007 the Professor and Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Studies both retired and in June 2008 the post of Professor was advertised, with a closing date of 10 October 2008. The complainant was involved in the recruitment process as he was asked to prepare recommendations for the external members of the interview board and in the advertisement his name was given for anyone who wanted to make "Informal Enquiries" regarding the post. He later decided to apply for the post and informed the College Principal. He alleged he was advised not to do so by the Principal, that UCD would not appoint someone so close to retirement and it was intended to be a new blood post and not intended for internal candidates. He was not shortlisted for interview.

The respondent denied that any discriminatory treatment in relation to the complainant's age took place. The respondent submitted that there were six essential criteria and the complainant did not meet three of them:

* he had not supervised post graduate students to completion of PhD
* he had not secured funding for research, and
* he did not have a substantial record of peer-reviewed publications.

The Equality Officer found:

"I conclude that the short-listing process did not judge the complainant purely on an objective assessment of his application against the criteria for the post, as some personal knowledge of the complainant was needed for the short listing board to reach the conclusions they did. This is not in itself discriminatory but when taken together with the College Principal's comments to the complainant, when he told her that he was applying for the position, leads me to conclude that the short listing process was tainted by these comments and that this amounts to discrimination on the grounds of age in relation to promotion."

The complainant was awarded €5000.
http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/index.asp?locID=181&docID=2528


5. DEC-E2010-262: 2 Employees -v- An Employer

Grounds / Issues: Race, Conditions of Employment, Victimisation, Discriminatory Dismissal
Award: €2,000 each for Discriminatory Conditions of Employment.

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