This case concerned a complainant who alleged that she was receiving less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender. The Complainant was a primary school teacher who was initially assigned to teach sixth class students but was subsequently replaced by a male teacher and the Complainant was reassigned to resource teaching.

The Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent in 1999. She had been a mainstream teacher for the most part, with the exception of a five-year period when she carried out resource teaching due to her personal circumstances. In the school years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, the Complainant taught sixth class.  She was assigned to teach sixth class again on the 13th of May for the following school year 2019/2020. It was submitted that the norm in the school was that the sixth classes are taught by one male teacher and one female teacher.  Following her assignment as a teacher for the sixth class a parent (who is also a teacher at the school) insisted that her daughter be taught by a male teacher. In relation to the assignment of a male teacher to teach the other teacher’s child, the Complainant made a number of suggestions as to how this could be accommodated, short of removing her from teaching the sixth-class students. As far as the Complainant was concerned, the decision to reassign her to resource teaching was taken partly because of the other issues she had in the school but mainly on gender grounds. The Complainant’s suggestions were refused, and the Complainant commenced sick leave on the 3rd of September 2019, returning to work in November 2019.

It was submitted that the Complainant had suffered less favourable treatment and a deterioration in her working conditions by comparison with the male teacher who was assigned to teach sixth class. There was a severe impact on the Complainant’s health as a result of the decision to reassign her. She gave evidence that she was forced to work in close proximity with the named teacher who had sought to have her child taught by a male teacher and another member of staff with whom she had previous difficulties.

The Complainant submitted that there was no other explanation given to the Complainant regarding the decision to reassign her role from sixth class to resource teaching other than the desire to have a male teacher in sixth class.

The Respondent submitted that it was the duty of the Principal to weigh the options carefully, bearing in mind the wishes of the teacher, the needs of the school or a particular class and other information particular to a school situation which may influence decisions. For the academic year 2019/2020, the then Principal allocated the Complainant to a special education teacher role. The Respondent denied that the Complainant was discriminated against on grounds of gender or any other ground.

The Principal decided that it would be prudent to reconsider his class allocations and to change the Complainant’s class to her second choice, being second class. When she refused this option, she was allocated to resource teaching.

Separate and distinct to the disagreement regarding discrimination, the Respondent also submitted that the Complainant was out of time to submit her complaint.  Section 77(5) of the Employment Equality Act 1998 permits up to six months from the date of occurrence of discrimination or victimisation as the time limit for referring a complaint to the WRC. However, the Complainant did not refer her complaint to the WRC until eight months after the alleged act of discrimination and the Respondent sought to have the proceedings dismissed on this basis.

The Adjudication Officer noted that discrimination in this case appeared to rely on the interpretation of working conditions and concluded that the Complainant’s non-assignment to a mainstream class in 2019/20 could not be legitimately claimed to have adversely affected her promotional prospects, even hypothetically.

The Adjudication Officer also decided that the second of the Complainant’s claimed detriments i.e. working in close proximity to and sharing supervision with named other teachers was not an act of discrimination against the Complainant.

The difficulty arose not from providing her with less favourable treatment to that of her comparator, as alleged, but her own poor relations with colleagues which by common accord predated her assignment to special education in 2019/2020, and as the Complainant had placed special education as her third choice, claiming that the same outcome represented a detriment imposed on her is not sustainable. Even if the definition of a working condition were stretched to incorporate such an issue as constituting a working definition for the purposes of the legislation which was, according to the Adjudication Officer, “at best a dubious line of argument” , it was not sufficiently robust to find that it represented less favourable treatment resulting directly from gender discrimination.

The Adjudication Officer found no evidence of less favourable treatment of the Complainant, consequently, there was no basis for a finding of discrimination in favour of the Complainant.

Guidance for Employers

While the AO in this case found no grounds to sustain an argument of less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, nonetheless it is a useful reminder of the importance of considering the equality impact of policies – such as the policy in this case that required one male and one female teacher – and determine if such a policy can be justified and applied in a consistent manner.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2022/june/adj-00027305.html