A gym worker who was sexually harassed at a work Christmas party when her boss made a remark suggesting she was receiving "sexual services" from her personal trainer has won €5,500 compensation.
The Workplace Relations Commission has ordered Belfort Capital Ltd, trading as Energie Fitness, to pay the compensation to fitness instructor Karen McVeeney on foot of a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998.
Ms McVeeney had been a member of the firm's gym in Citywest, Dublin 24 for a number of years before she got a job there in September 2024, earning €13.20 an hour.
Her job involved leading exercise classes, cleaning the equipment and taking sales calls, the tribunal heard. At the time, she was also engaging with a personal trainer at the gym, she told the WRC at a hearing in Dublin earlier this year.
She was talking to the gym’s manager, Chris O’Donoghue, about her personal training at the work Christmas party on 7 December 2024 when he "made an innuendo that, in addition to fitness training, she received services of a sexual nature" from the PT.
Mr O’Donoghue, she said, became "aggressive" with her the following month when she was in the gym on her day off to train. She described him shouting: "Have you got an issue with me?" at her.
Ms McVeeney’s evidence was that the manager had also made "offensive remarks about a female member who was using the shower in the gym" and that she warned him that saying things like that "could land him in trouble".
In response, Mr O’Donoghue had "repeated the comment" towards her, she said.
The following month, Mr O’Donoghue pulled her up about the length of time she had spent speaking to a gym member on the premises.
She said Mr O’Donoghue said he had "timed" her and noted that she had spent 20 minutes talking to the man – then directed her not to spend "more than five minutes" talking to a member of the gym. Her other colleagues got no such instruction, she said.
Ms McVeeney went on to say that she told Mr O’Donoghue two days later that the instruction was "ridiculous". He "got very angry" and started shouting at her, she said. Mr O’Donoghue then left and returned to say he intended to give her a warning.
"He didn’t indicate what the warning was for," she said. She added that she tried to get in touch with the area manager, Dean Morelli, to discuss her manager’s conduct, but Mr Morelli failed to respond.
Finally, on February 17th last year, the manager produced a document for Ms McVeeney to sign acknowledging a warning. Ms McVeeney said she wanted to take advice before signing, she said.
At that, Mr O’Donoghue phoned the area manager and told him she had "refused to sign", Ms McVeeney said.
She said she could hear Mr Morelli’s instructions to Mr O’Donoghue: "Tell her to leave the premises and take her keys from her."
When she asked to speak to Mr Morelli directly, she said she was told that if she refused to sign, she was to leave.
Adjudicator Catherine Byrne concluded that Ms McVeeney was herself "sexually harassed by her manager’s offensive remarks" and thus suffered gender discrimination. She awarded €5,500 for the breach.
Ms Byrne wrote "a couple of off-handed sexual remarks" might seem "trivial" to some, but it was clear to her that they had violated Ms McVeeney’s dignity and created "a humiliating and offensive environment for her at her place of work".
However, she was not satisfied that Ms McVeeney had escalated her complaint about any alleged remarks about a gym member to a senior enough level to be shielded as a whistleblower and benefit from the protection of the Unfair Dismissals Act before she had built up a year’s service.
Ms Byrne awarded a further four weeks’ wages in compensation, €2,112, to Ms McVeeney for the late provision of a contractual document in breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994.
The company has been ordered to pay her €7,612 in all.
