A garden centre which had an autistic job applicant work an unpaid trial shift without asking the same of other candidates has been ordered to pay \u20ac5,000 for disability discrimination at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).<\/p>\n
The WRC found that the worker was left \u201cconfused, humiliated and excluded\u201d by the experience, which has had a \u201clasting negative impact on his confidence and self-worth\u201d.<\/p>\n
The WRC ordered the unidentified business to pay the compensation on foot of a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998, in a wholly anonymised decision published on Friday. <\/p>\n
The worker, a 27-year-old man with autism, told the WRC at a series of hearings in Cork earlier this year that he applied for a job as a retail assistant in May 2024 via an agency that assists people with disabilities in finding employment. <\/p>\n
He said that he had \u201cworked successfully\u201d in both retail businesses and in the care setting. He said his adviser at the agency, Mr A, had suggested the garden centre job would give him a chance to \u201ccontribute productively in a small local business\u201d. <\/p>\n
At interview on 10th May, 2024, he met the garden centre\u2019s manager and its accountant, and said he was led to believe on the basis of their discussion that he had been hired. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey said it would be \u20ac12 an hour. Then one of them asked when I could start. I said tomorrow, and they said: \u2018Great, we\u2019ll see you then,\u2019\u201d the complainant recounted. <\/p>\n
He reported for work the next morning, Saturday 11th May, but said he was \u201cleft waiting\u201d until another employee emerged from an office and said she had been told to \u201ckeep an eye\u201d on him, he said. <\/p>\n
The complainant said he was instructed to water plants and carry bags of compost, and had \u201cno instruction or supervision for most of the day\u201d. <\/p>\n
Having arrived at 9am for work, he continued until 6pm, and believed he had finished his first full day as an employee, he said. However, nobody told him whether he was meant to come back the next day, or what his roster would be. <\/p>\n
The following week, he got an email saying he was \u201cnot the right fit\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t understand it. Nobody told me it was a test,\u201d the worker said. <\/p>\n
His sister-in-law, who had dropped him off in the morning, said that when she came to collect him in the evening, the complainant seemed \u201ctired and confused\u201d after spending the day \u201cwatering plants and moving compost in hot weather\u201d. <\/p>\n
The complainant said that when he asked about his wages, he was told he would get a \u20ac100 voucher \u201cas a thank-you\u201d, he added. His case was that he was \u201cmisled into working an unpaid \u2018trial day\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt humiliated. I worked a full day. I was treated like I wasn\u2019t worth being paid properly,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they didn\u2019t want me, they should have said so politely, not let me come in and work like that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He said the experience left him \u201canxious, confused, and reluctant to apply for further work\u201d. <\/p>\n
Questioned by the company\u2019s representative, Aoife Walsh of Tom Smyth and Associates, about whether he had been told the work would be physically demanding, the complainant said: \u201cNobody said that. I was ready to work. I\u2019ve done lifting work before.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he needed no special accommodations. \u201cAll I needed was someone to explain clearly what to do. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s owner and managing director had accepted in his evidence that no one had been assigned to monitor or evaluate the complainant\u2019s performance, the tribunal noted. <\/p>\n
The complainant, the tribunal noted, had applied for the position via an agency \u201cthat assists persons with disabilities find a job\u201d. <\/p>\n
However, the company\u2019s HR consultant maintained in her evidence that the agency\u2019s representative never told her that the complainant was autistic or required any special assistance. She \u201cassumed there were no disability related issues\u201d, she said. <\/p>\n
This position had been echoed by the company\u2019s managing director, who said there had been no disability disclosed, and by the store manager who interviewed the complainant, who said he had \u201cno knowledge\u201d of the complainant\u2019s disability. <\/p>\n
When this was put to the job agency representative, he said: \u201cI told her [the HR consultant] the complainant was autistic, and she said that was fine.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added that the agency did not become aware of the trial until he read an email sent the preceding Friday the following Monday, and accepted the situation \u201carose from miscommunication\u201d. <\/p>\n
However, the witness said the garden centre\u2019s management should have taken more care to \u201ccommunicate clearly\u201d \u2013 adding that the offer of a voucher in place of wages was \u201cnot acceptable practice\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his decision, adjudicator Thomas O\u2019Driscoll said the agency rep\u2019s evidence was \u201cmore credible and persuasive\u201d than that of the garden centre\u2019s HR consultant. <\/p>\n
He found, on balance of probabilities, that the garden centre \u201cwas on notice of the complainant\u2019s disability from the outset\u201d. <\/p>\n
The business\u2019s recruitment practices were \u201cinformal, unstructured and poorly co-ordinated\u201d with \u201cno written procedures, evaluation forms or objective criteria\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe so-called trial was unpaid, lacked any defined parameters and was conducted without proper supervision or assessment,\u201d he wrote \u2013 noting that the worker was left \u201clargely unattended\u201d, was given \u201cphysical tasks in hot conditions\u201d and got \u201cminimal direction or feedback\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe requirement that the complainant alone undertake an unpaid \u2018trial\u2019 constituted a differential and disadvantageous condition of access to employment not imposed on other candidates,\u201d Mr O\u2019Driscoll wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the context of disability, this disparity was inherently discriminatory,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
He noted that the experience left the complainant \u201cconfused, humiliated and excluded\u201d and had \u201ca lasting negative impact on his confidence and self-worth\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cTheir failure to make even minimal inquiries or adjustments represented a serious disregard of their legal obligations and of the dignity of a person with a disability,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
He awarded the complainant \u20ac5,000 in compensation, and made a direction under the Employment Equality Act 1998 to the business to review its hiring practices to ensure compliance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A garden centre which had an autistic job applicant work an unpaid trial shift without asking the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,1962],"class_list":["post-152316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}