Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Niall Fitzgerald

Mud Pie Beauty Cottage Limited

Representatives

Barry O’Mahoney BL

DAS Insurance Company

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-00020127-001

02/07/2018

The Complainant says that the Respondent beauty salon terminated his employment by reason of his being male and/or they indirectly discriminated against him by not making allowance for the fact that as a male he would not be as familiar with certain applications he believes women perform as a matter of course.

The Complainant very ably represented himself at the hearing.

The Respondent made the case that it had made a commercial decision in letting the Complainant go as his experience was not a match for this particularly fast paced salon.

I have carefully considered the evidence adduced by both sides herein. The Complainant is a recently graduated Beauty therapist and has the highest level of accreditation. In and around May of 2018 the Complainant answered an advertisement for Beauty Therapists in a salon in Dublin. It is common case that the complainant submitted an application form stating he had one year of experience in a Beauty Salon. This was not exactly the case as his previous experience was part of his training and therefore he did not have a full year experience post attaining his certificate.

The Beauty salon interviewed up to 18 candidates and the interviewers of the final 7 were very taken with the complainant who has a good manner and a real interest in the product and operation of the Beauty Therapies. The Complainant was the only male but judging by the documented exchange between the interviewer and the salon owner this made him a more exciting candidate.  I accept that the Employer was willing to overlook the slight exaggeration of one year of professional experience to take the opportunity to engage the Complainant. I also accept that the Salon made it clear that nails, manicures and shellac treatments would have to be part of his skillset if the Complainant was to achieve a position with them. The Complainant indicated he was good and experienced in this area though he admitted to not being too confident with French manicures. To demonstrate how important this exchange of information was to the Respondent, the Salon disclosed it’s annual figures which shows nail treatments as being by far in a way the most commonly sought treatment in the salon (up to 1,900 treatments in any six month period). The Salon assessed the other competencies the Complainant had and deemed him to be a good fit for the salon and were willing to give him a position.

The Complainant was offered the job on the 15th of June and was due to commence on the 20th. The Complainant was not designated a senior therapist and was on a rate of pay of about €11.00 per hour. The Complainant was asked to partake in a couple of induction days before starting and it was in the course of these days that problems started to arise. The Respondent staff gave evidence that the work being performed by the Complainant was not up to scratch and was taking too long.

In the course of the next few days, the complainant was provided with some limited opportunity to upskill himself in the area of the application of shellac and manicures generally, but the fact is that this is not a training salon and the Complainant simply did not meet the minimum standard required to be allowed perform unsupervised nail treatments.

The Complainant stated that his standard was perfectly good and emphasised that his real skillset lay in facials and skin treatments. However, I accept that the Respondent needed to assess the Complainant in the area most lucrative to the Respondent (i.e. Nails) before considering his suitability for other areas further down the line. I note that the Complainant had done some small amount of massage work in addition to the nail consultations being assigned to him.

By the following week (June 27th) the Respondent had assessed that whilst the Complainant had shown improvement, the Respondent could not afford the time required to bring him up to the standard required by the Salon. There was simply too much training required to bring him up to that standard.

The Respondent absolutely refutes the proposition that the Complainant’s employment was terminated by reason of the fact that he was a man. The Respondent cited many occasions where it had previously let go Beauty Therapists that weren’t performing good enough work quickly enough. This has a knock on and negative operational and functional impact of the business as others have to make up the time or repair the work.

The Complainant says that he was discriminated against on the grounds of his gender but in particular made the case that it was unfair that his Employer would expect him to have an enhanced skill for manicures and shellac application in circumstances where he was a male and therefore would not have been self-administering files and polishes. As I understand it, he said he was being treated less favourably than a female who would inherently have more experience. The Respondent rejected this proposition of indirect discrimination. These are they say professional qualifications obtained through skill and diligence.

The Complainant believes it was totally unfair to only give him six days on the job before terminating his position. He did not after all apply for the position of nail technician, He is a beauty therapist whose expertise had not even been tapped into.

Having considered the evidence I am bound to conclude that the complainant has not established facts which give rise to the presumption of discrimination on the part of the Respondent. The Burden of Proof did not shift in the course of the hearing. Section 85A of the Employment Equality Act 1998 has not therefore been invoked.

Complaint brought under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998 therefore fails.