Sexism remains number one cause of complaint against Irish employers

SEXISM is still the number one cause of complaint against employers — 32 years after the first laws were enacted to give men and women equal rights in the workplace.

The annual report of the Equality Tribunal shows that while the greatest increase in complaints from employees concerned discrimination on disability grounds, the biggest number of cases were still gender-related, accounting for 89, or almost a quarter of all referrals last year.

Orla O’Connor, head of policy with the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), said the record of progress on sexism was a disgrace. “The cases might be numerically quite small but they’re reflective of a much wider problem.

“We have legislation since the 1970s and still the issue that tops the list consistently is gender discrimination. What this clearly shows is that while legislation can be implemented, legislation alone is not enough.”

Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show a 17% pay gap exists between men and women and the NWCI says men are almost three times more likely than women to be in management positions, suggesting that women suffer discrimination in both pay and promotion.

Peter Flood, assistant director of equality with the employers’ body, IBEC, however, said employers rarely discriminated directly against employees but were more likely to be caught failing to ensure equal treatment.

“An issue that comes up, for example, is where a woman looks for an atypical working arrangement because she has childcare problems. The employer says we don’t give atypical working arrangements to anybody so she is refused.

The laws says you can’t just refuse without looking at each application on a case-by-case basis and see if there are ways of facilitating the request,” he said.

“Equality is not about treating everybody the same because different people have different issues. There are some employers who make mistakes because they are not aware of the way equality legislation works.”

The majority of employment-related cases referred to the Equality Tribunal, under all nine discrimination grounds — including gender discrimination — were decided in favour of the employers last year but where cases were settled through mediation without going to hearing, the majority of complainants received cash awards.

Orla O’Connor said many of the issues arising for women in the workplace stemmed from childcare dilemmas. “One of the main reasons for the pay gap and lack of promotion is women’s responsibilities regarding parenting and caring.”