A veteran oil refinery employee has failed in a claim for pay equality after a former male colleague, whom she said she \u201ctrained in\u201d, ended up making \u20ac10,000 a year more than her.<\/p>\n
Sinead Cotter, a contracts and procurement specialist at Irving Oil Whitegate Refinery Ltd, had sought \u20ac107,000 in a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1977 alleging discrimination in pay on the grounds of gender and family status.<\/p>\n
Cotter, an industrial chemist by profession, first joined the refinery in the year 2000 on a student placement in a laboratory at the facility in Co Cork \u2013 Ireland\u2019s only oil refinery, supplying some 40 per cent of the market for petroleum products, the tribunal was told. <\/p>\n
Over her 25 years, she rose in seniority, undertook legal training, and was already in a senior role in its contracts department when a contractor on the same team, Brendan Collins, was made staff in December 2019, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n
Cotter \u201ctrained in\u201d Collins, her solicitor said, and the contract specialist roles were effectively interchangeable, he argued.<\/p>\n
The Canadian multinational Irving Oil bought out the refinery in 2016, the tribunal heard. In the following years, Cotter said, she was \u201cmanaging 50 contracts and juggling a busy home life\u201d \u2013 and hoped to advance from grade 13 to grade 14 in the company hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Collins started as a contractor with the refinery in 2018 and became an employee in December 2019, with a contracted salary of \u20ac79,000, the tribunal recorded. Cotter\u2019s pay in 2019 year was \u20ac88,109, including a bonus and health insurance.<\/p>\n
Cotter said she didn\u2019t apply for the vacancy filled by Collins, as she viewed it as a \u201csidestep\u201d. She said it was \u201cthe same job as hers\u201d, under the same job title: \u201cContract Specialist\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, she said she felt \u201cangry\u201d when she looked over Collins\u2019 contract and saw that he had a more senior grading than her. <\/p>\n
According to the adjudicator\u2019s analysis, Collins\u2019 pay as an employee overtook Cotter\u2019s in 2021, when his earnings rose to \u20ac94,000 and a more modest pay bump for Cotter brought her total compensation to \u20ac87,000. <\/p>\n
By the time she referred a WRC complaint in 2022, the pay disparity between them had increased to \u20ac10,000, it was submitted.<\/p>\n
Collins, who was no longer working for the firm when he gave evidence last year, said: \u201cSinead and I had very similar job scopes and everyday tasks … Our work scopes were identical for all intents and purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he and Cotter were \u201ca tag team\u201d and expressed the view that she could do all of his duties if required \u2013 to the point that he had \u201cdoubts on accepting tenure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there were differences, they were not material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Adrian Quill, the firm\u2019s supply manager, said Cotter was not managing the same level of \u201ccommercial risk\u201d as Collins.<\/p>\n
Cotter, he said, was focused chiefly on managing catering and cleaning services with outside staff being brought in at hourly rates.<\/p>\n
He contrasted these \u201ccare and maintenance\u201d undertakings with the \u201clarger industrial jobs\u201d which Collins had been tasked with.<\/p>\n
Cotter was responsible for a contract for security, catering and cleaning worth \u20ac1.2 million; \u20ac3 million worth of engineering contracts, and inspection and waste disposal contracts valued at \u20ac1 million each, her solicitor said.<\/p>\n
The company said that in 2020 Collins handled contracts worth between \u20ac13 million and \u20ac14 million each in 2020, including tenders for refurbishment and construction work, mechanical services, electrical work, painting and industrial cleaning. His work drew on his skills as a qualified quantity surveyor, the company argued.<\/p>\n
Rachel O\u2019Flynn BL, appearing for the company instructed by JRAP O\u2019Meara, argued there was a \u201cclear distinction\u201d between the two roles and that any difference in pay was down to \u201cgrounds unconnected with the complainant\u2019s gender or family status\u201d.<\/p>\n
Adjudicator Patsy Doyle wrote in her decision: \u201cI find that Mr Collins participated in larger scale projects to Ms Cotter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept that they sat in same office and worked the same hours. However, I found a perpetual difference in the work,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Collins\u2019 job was ranked a grade above Cotter\u2019s \u201con skill and market forces\u201d, with quantity surveying a \u201ccentral component\u201d, she added.<\/p>\n
She rejected the complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A veteran oil refinery employee has failed in a claim for pay equality after a former male colleague,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-337775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337775","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=337775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}