13 Oct €81,000 Awarded for Workplace Discrimination

A female lecturer was awarded over 80k compensation when the Equality Tribunal determined that she had suffered gender and disability discrimination for almost 10 years in a male dominated working environment.

This was a significant award and in summary during the case (ref E2014 – 039) some of the claimant’s evidence was that:

• She was told that a male comparator had a family to support when she asked about pay differences between them;
• She was put under pressure to work during maternity related sick leave and when she refused to carry out a task, comments were made about not getting another contract due to the amount of time she was taking off;
• A permanent contract which she became entitled to was only offered on the basis of being an “Applied  Teacher” and resulted in her not being allowed to avail of a number of benefits that other lecturers had and which restricted her career progression.

The Tribunal determined that the the claimant had been discriminated against in relation to her terms and conditions of employment and in addition to the compensation awarded the University was required to restore her to the post of lecturer on the terms and conditions that she would have had if not discriminated against.