Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Job Applicant

A Tour Operator

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00014777-001

04/10/2017

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00014777-002

04/10/2017

The claimant submitted the respondent was in breach of employment equality legislation for discriminating against him in his application for an Accounts Assistant with the respondent in September 2017. It was submitted that the claimant was discriminated against on the grounds of age, disability and sexual orientation.

The claimant submitted an application for the position on the 29.08.2017 with his CV. The respondent indicated that she would be in touch again after 72 hours to organise interviews. When no further response was received the claimant contacted the respondent seeking clarification on the interviews, the respondent replied indicating that his CV might be too weak. The claimant asserted that his application was thrown over “by the advice of an accountant who quite frankly does not know how I have established myself in my career history to date.” He further contended that the respondent company did not have a mission statement of equality on their website. The claimant asserted that he was taking the case under “indirect Discrimination and Perceptive Discrimination”. He submitted that “Examples of Indirect Discrimination would be setting recruitment criteria which are not actually justified by the job or job description, but which have the effect of discriminating against certain groups of people (e.g. requiring exam qualifications suggesting skills which are not actually needed by the job and which could discriminate against individuals with learning difficulties) using assessment tests measuring abilities not required by the job but which could discriminate against groups of people (i.e. reasoning ability tests for unskilled manual jobs which could discriminate against those without English as a first language).   It is up to the Employment Tribunal can draw reasonable inference by the facts as demonstrated by my qualifications and ability if I can do the job”.

The claimant submitted his CV into evidence and invoked the provisions of Lynskey – v – The Board of Management of Coolmine Community School (2002) in support of his position. The claimant stated that you only put out in information on the CV and that it is at interview you sell yourself and that he was a suitable candidate to be called for interview.

The respondent denied that the claimant had been in way discriminated against and it was contended that the claimant had failed to set out a prima facie case to show that the reasons for him not getting the role or called for interview related to his age, disability or sexual orientation. It was advanced that the respondent had never met the claimant, that their only communication was through email and that there was no evidence advanced to ground a complaint on any of the 3 grounds referred to in the claimant’s complaint form. It was contended that notwithstanding the claimant’s qualifications, the respondent’s accountant had reviewed his CV and concluded on the basis of that that the claimant did not have sufficient experience to be considered for the job.

It was submitted that it is only when the initial burden is discharged that the burden of proving that there was no infringement of practise of equal treatment passes to the respondent and that consequently the complaint must fail.