She argued that a trimmer was an equivalent job to a filleter however a fish filleter was paid more because Talleys appointed men to be filleters and women to be trimmers.
Ms Lewis’s male partner was employed as a filleter one week before she started. . They had identical skills and background. Her partner was paid more than she was because he was a trainee filleter.
The Human Rights Commission found in favour of Ms Lewis and Talley’s appealed to the High Court. To succeed she had to prove that she had applied for a job but that the employer had refused to employ her for work which was available due to her gender or that the employer offered her less favourable terms of employment or conditions of work because she was a woman.
Talley’s accepted that men, with a few exceptions, worked as filleters and general hands and women, with a few exceptions, worked as trimmers and packer. The jobs the men held paid more. Talleys accepted that historically more men worked as filleters than women and more women worked as trimmers than men.
The Court found that the two jobs (trimmers and filleters) were “substantially similar” but, skilled trimmers (usually women) were not moved into filleting positions when vacancies arose. Instead Talleys hired untrained people usually men, and gave them brief instruction as to what they needed to do in the job. It was inferred that due to this Talleys did not view women as filleters and did not move them on for that reason.
The Court also found that Talleys had a propensity to discriminate against women in the allocation of the role of filleter. Attitudes such as “women don’t like filleting”, “women are not as good at filleting” and ”the work of filleting is too demanding for women” influenced Talleys decision making. There had been no real prospect of Ms Lewis being appointed to a filleting job when she applied.
Because of this discrimination Ms Lewis received less money and she had suffered disadvantage. This case illustrates that positions cannot be filled solely due to the gender of the applicant. Employers need to be very careful about appointing or advertising positions if they are not prepared to hire both sexes. Compensation and costs were awarded to Ms Lewis.
