Apple worker’s equal-pay and collective-agreement complaints fail

The Workplace Relations Commission found Paul O'Sullivan’s equal-pay and collective-agreement discrimination complaints against Apple Operations Europe limited were not well founded. It also found his payment-of-wages complaint was brought outside the time limit and was not well founded; the merits were not decided. O'Sullivan said a mainly male group of long-term flexible employees was paid less than a mainly female permanent group. The WRC found he had not identified a real comparator of the other sex doing like work, so he had not established an equal-pay case. He also argued that a 2015 collective agreement’s protection of existing permanent employees’ terms was discriminatory. The WRC found the union-negotiated provision was not discriminatory. His wages complaint concerned a claimed weekly differential of €32.11. He said it was properly payable because he was not classed as a permanent worker. The WRC found the amount was not properly payable and that he had not shown reasonable cause for the delay in resubmitting the complaint after withdrawing it. The decision was dated 29 November 2022.