Talley's Fisheries found guilty of discrimination

Talley's Fisheries has been found guilty of discriminating against a woman who was employed at its Motueka fish factory.

However, Talley's Fisheries director Andrew Talley has hit back, labelling the decision by the Human Rights Review Tribunal as "a PC society gone mad" and "lunacy", saying the company would appeal the finding.

The tribunal has accepted a claim by former Talley's worker Caitlin Lewis that during the 1999 and 2000 hoki seasons there was unlawful gender discrimination by the company in the way it allocated fish filleting roles predominantly to men, while allocating trimming jobs mainly to women.

The tribunal also found that Talley's treated Ms Lewis' partner Brett Edwards less favourably than he would otherwise have been treated when he applied for a job at the factory in May 2001, because Ms Lewis had complained about Talley's to the Human Rights Commission in February that year.

Like Ms Lewis, Mr Edwards had previously worked for Talley's in the 1999 and 2000 hoki seasons and he believed he was not successful in being re-employed because of Ms Lewis' complaint.

What remedies would be made or awarded, if any, has yet to be dealt with.

A further claim by Ms Lewis that there was unlawful gender discrimination in the way Talley's paid staff in filleting and trimming roles was dismissed by the tribunal.

Talley's had denied all the allegations.

In 1999, when Mr Edwards first started working at the hoki processing plant, he was assigned a general hand role that included labouring and learning to fillet -- a job that was higher paid than the general hand job Ms Lewis was given, which included fish trimming. Ms Lewis complained that she was never given any opportunity to do the work Mr Edwards was employed to do.

While Ms Lewis did not raise the matter or complain to management, the tribunal stated that the attitudes of Talley's management would have discouraged her from asking for a job transfer.

It was not disputed that historically Talley's had more male than female filleters, and more female than male trimmers.

The tribunal found that while the general hand filleting role was more onerous and required heavy lifting, it saw no reason why Ms Lewis might not have been able to carry out all the tasks for the job.

"There is no basis to suppose that if Ms Lewis had been given a chance to do the work she would not have become a skilled filleter."

In its decision, the tribunal said that evidence in the case demonstrated an attitude by Talley's management in 1999/2000 that women were unlikely to be as adept as men in the general hand filleting role and that, as a rule, women would not choose to do filleting.

"There was no evidence that management at Talley's had a practice of offering the choice at any stage."

However, the tribunal found the discrimination was not an intentional breach of anti-discrimination provisions in the Human Rights Act.

Mr Talley said Talley's employment policy was based on skill and ability, not gender. However, like in many areas of life, it had some roles where there were more men employed than women, and vice-versa, because physical and non-physical differences meant each had greater propensity for different jobs, he said.

He said the factory had women filleters in 1999, and still had them, but Ms Lewis had not applied for a filleting job.

"That's the lunacy of it -- if she didn't apply for it, how can she be discriminated against?

"It's complete nonsense," Mr Talley said.

The tribunal's finding seemed to say there must be a gender balance in all roles, Mr Talley said, and the company would be appealing.

"If that is breaking the law or discrimination, the law needs to be changed," he said.

- nzpa