On 3 November the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) released a decision ruling that a masseuse (female) who reported her boss (male) for demanding sexual favours and was subsequently penalized was entitled to €91,000 in compensation.
In 2019 the complainant, a foreign national, was interviewed with a “massage therapy business”. She was told she got the job, but it was contingent on her completing a €500 course with a female manager who owned a massage school abroad. In 2020, the claimant proceeded to commence employment. While she did receive some instruction, she never received either the training course that she had paid for or the certificate of qualification that she had been told she would receive. There was no written contract of employment between the business and the claimant, but the schedule had her working roughly forty hours a week for €70 a day. After her employment began the claimant noticed that the other masseuses were providing and charging for sexual services. When the claimant brought this up with her managers she was taken out to dinner and told that she should provide those services as well. The claimant stated that while the managers told her she could decide not to, they “could assure her that she wouldn’t get more clients”. The claimant interpreted these words to mean they would cease to assign her clients and effectively they would be firing her. Due to this fear, the claimant began to offer a limited range of sexual services, but her managers pressured her to add more despite her numerous pronouncements that she did not want to and feared for her health and safety. In addition to this pressure to offer sexual services to clients the male manager consistently made the complainant massage him for free and pressured her to provide him with sexual services. When the complainant eventually refused along with another worker the female manager stopped scheduling her as often and implemented a policy where the complainant wouldn’t be paid unless she saw at least four clients every week. This resulted in her not being paid multiple times. In May of 2022, the claimant went on holiday for two weeks and upon her return, she was told that there would be no more work for her.
The claimant filed a complaint with the WRC on the grounds of unfair dismissal. The Claimant alleged, among other smaller grievances that the massage therapy business illegally penalized her for making a protected disclosure regarding the sexual acts required of her under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, did not provide a procedure dismissal and failed to utilize fair procedures, and withheld pay on several occasions. The massage therapy business made no submissions and did not appear.
Under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 it is no longer illegal to conduct sex work, however, as the claimant’s barrister noted it is still illegal to “compel or coerce a person into providing sexual services, and to profit as a result”. The WRC awarded the claimant €91,000, the equivalent of five years' salary, for being penalized for making a protected disclosure. The adjudicator stated that he was satisfied that there was a link between the claimant’s poor treatment and both the reduced hours/withheld pay and the manager's attempts to pressure the claimant into providing him sexual services. He also noted that due to English not being her native language and being far from home she was in an exceptionally vulnerable position. This is the first time the WRC has seen fit to grant the statutory maximum for a “whistleblower” violation. She was also awarded a further €11,550 for her other claims, making the settlement the second largest this year.
Click here to see the WRC decision https://workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2023/november/adj-00043225.html