National Trust lose case after gardener suffered direct discrimination and harassment on grounds of sex

[ChristinaXYZ]

The full story is in the Telegraph but I would say the moral is not to trust organisations like the National Trust that virtue signal with rainbow lanyards and whatnot to get the basics right when it comes to discrimination. It is hard to see from the article why the central management didn't see fit to investigate what was happening at the house and their acceptance of the judgement is very mealy mouthed.

"Her tipping point came when she was rejected for the job in favour of a male applicant who had scored significantly lower than her during the interview process.

Ms Bryant said the National Trust “completely broke her spirit”. She took the charity to an employment tribunal and has now been awarded £49,297.24 in compensation for unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/04/national-trust-broke-spirit-says-chartwell-gardener-won-50k/

[SirSamuelVimes]

Woke washing. I don't trust any business that makes a point of draping itself in rainbows and glitter. For many reasons!

[Ghosttile]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9859927/Gardener-Chartwell-said-National-Trust-broke-spirit-wins-nearly-50k-compensation.html

Daily Fail but free

[Fitt]

Awful. Unconscious bias is alive and kicking.
The managers also sound disgusting moaning about the volunteer tea breaks. Penny pinching bean counters.

[IS0D0RA]

What a shocking story! It reflects very poorly on the NT.

I hope Ms Bryant is successful in her new career.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

It doesn’t surprise me that a previous conflict she had with managers involved her sticking up for volunteers. The trust often doesn’t seem to value or respect its volunteers the way you would hope.

[PaleGreenGhost]

Excellent result and hopefully paves the way for more sex discrimination cases. I think it is the only way to get people to even see misogyny, we are all so accustomed to it.

[21Bee]

The problem with the national trust is lots of the donor families live in them and manage them on the National Trust’s behalf. From experience it’s an absolute scam, I used to be expected to work for months on end without a day off. The trust don’t really know what’s going on at all of the properties really.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

The National Trust's statement after the judgement is appalling. A spokesman said

“While we are clearly disappointed by the decision, we respect the judgment. However, the judge did make it clear in the remedy judgment that the discrimination was not deliberate and that it was a clear case of unconscious bias.”

As if it being "unconscious" is somehow an excuse or a defence. There's no apology to Ms Bryant, and being disappointed with the decision implies that they don't think they should have lost the case!

[FannyCann]

Managers complaining about the length of the VOLUNTEER's tea breaks! They'll have them clocking in and clocking off next.
Next time I'm in a NT house I'm going to ask the volunteers if they get a tea break.

[Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

When I joined the charity sector I naively thought they'd be better employers than the private sector. How wrong I was.

I'm glad she won but she shouldn't have had to go through it in the first place.

[Duetorain]

Well done to her for sticking things through. She partly stands for woman many who don’t feel able mentally or physically or financially can’t take these cases.

[ChristinaXYZ]

And here's another one. Woke old John Lewis who won't protect women's spaces have not been paying what they should to minimum wage staff and have been named as the worst offender by the government. All this woke washing seems to hide poor employment and customer service practices.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/05/never-knowingly-underpaid-john-lewis-hits-named-britains-worst/

"It was claimed that investigations by HM Revenue & Customs found about £2.1 million was owed to 34,000 workers across all the companies.

At the top of the list was John Lewis, which was said to have failed to pay more than £940,000 to 19,392 workers, the highest of any business named."

It reminds of the premier league where footballers kneeling hides all the other issues and protects clubs from criticism whilst inflaming tensions that weren't there a few years ago. I think players like Ivan Toney of Brentford who says he won't take the knee because it is the players being "used like puppets" are really brave. When will a premier league club throw a tournament and walk away when their players are abused when playing away in Europe. That's what might make a difference - might embarrass UEFA. But no they just woke wash.

[nettie434]

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

When I joined the charity sector I naively thought they'd be better employers than the private sector. How wrong I was.

I'm glad she won but she shouldn't have had to go through it in the first place.

I would put this very high up my list of Things I Have Learned in my life too. Agree that all the (Insert name) Awareness Days/Weeks/Months count for nothing in many organisations.

Wishing Claire Bryant all the best in the future. It looks as if she has been badly affected. As for 'tea break gate', that is really shocking. I think unfortunately they probably have a lot of applicants.

I actually heard some researchers presenting their research about NT volunteers. This tribunal shouldn't have come as any surprise to the NT:

www2.le.ac.uk/departments/business/images/research/work-and-employment/a-report-of-the-findings-from-the-national-trust-project

[nettie434]

Incomplete sentence there - I meant to write they probably have so many volunteers they don't feel they need to make any effort to retain them.

[Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

Volunteers are often very badly treated by the organisations for which they volunteer. I've heard some shocking stories.

Staff aren't treated much better at some charities.

[Abitofalark]

A tribunal's finding that it was a clear case of unconscious bias isn't an accolade, NT! What a dope to come out with that statement.

That woman was brave to resign and take such a risk in claiming constructive dismissal and then go through the whole gruelling tribunal process. That takes its toll in every way but at least in the end she did win and get compensation. Well done to her but she should never have been put through it.

[TheHandmadeTails]

Well done to her for pursuing it and speaking out.

[GreenBlueTack]

Doesn't surprise me at all. I worked for them and after I got married I was told that I wasn't allowed any project work incase I went on maternity leave.

I did get pregnant and was told I wasn't allowed to go as it wasn't in my day off and didn't suit business needs. Shortly after myself and my other female colleagues were mysteriously made redundant.

Awful toxic business who claim they are a "charity".

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

‘Doesn't surprise me at all. I worked for them and after I got married I was told that I wasn't allowed any project work incase I went on maternity leave.‘

[GreenBlueTack]

@GreenBlueTack

Doesn't surprise me at all. I worked for them and after I got married I was told that I wasn't allowed any project work incase I went on maternity leave.

I did get pregnant and was told I wasn't allowed to go as it wasn't in my day off and didn't suit business needs. Shortly after myself and my other female colleagues were mysteriously made redundant.

Awful toxic business who claim they are a "charity".

That's meant to say I wasn't allowed to go to my maternity appointment as it wasn't on my day off. My manager at the time pointed out this was illegal and got the reply "if doesn't suit the business needs."

[MonsignorMirth]

Fecking hell, just read the last bit of the Mail article. What arses on top of all that.

The compensation was broken down into seven parts, including a basic award, compensation for loss of earnings, counselling costs, compensation for injury to feelings, and uplift in respect of tax.

However, on July 9 this year, Claire said she received a payment of £41,866.93 from the National Trust - a shortfall of £7,430.31, which she queried. On July 13, she was told via email that the National Trust believes that, in order to comply with HMRC rules, it is obliged to apply an emergency tax code, despite the remedy including an amount to cover tax.

Claire said she will now have to wait until April next year to claim this money back, but she is investigating the deduction. She feels the charity 'just wanted to have the last word'.

[GameofPhones]

Not much detail about the second interview which was so unsatisfactory. However, I see that it was presented to her as 'informal chat'. My own experience of interviews is that 'informal chats' are anything but.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

It explains in the Times article that the second interview, described as an "informal chat", was carried out in front of members of the public, which is completely inappropriate. It also clearly says that at this "informal chat" the person interviewing her raised issues about her personal performance that had never been raised before and where all her previous formal performance reviews had been highly rated. That's obviously totally problematic and inappropriate.

[Phineyj]

I am struggling to see how you can unconsciously ignore that one candidate has a much higher score than another in a points-based interview. That's idiotic.

[spongedog]

I didnt see this thread first time round, but it sounds a partly decent result for the individual under the circumstances.

I was looking for National Trust posts as I have been reading the papers for the NT Members AGM. A couple of quite interesting member resolutions including one about treatment of volunteers. I am also looking at the Elections for the Council. A very interesting candidate SG from a Welsh county has some quite outspoken views as part of their candidate statement, and other candidates are also fairly outspoken. Just wondered if anyone was voting?