An Equality Officer found that Tusker Agricultural Services Limited discriminated against Aurimas Rimkunas in his driving duties and ordered the company to pay him €7,500. The decision was dated 18 May 2012. The compensation was approximately three months’ pay and did not include remuneration.
Rimkunas said he drove a minibus carrying workers from Monaghan to Dublin but was not paid for the driving time. He said that after complaining, he was given no work for five to six weeks. The company denied that he worked off the books and said he was laid off because there was no work. The officer accepted Rimkunas’s uncontested evidence and found that an Irish driver would not have been treated the same way.
Rimkunas’s equal-pay complaint failed because he did not establish a pay difference with his comparators. His discriminatory-dismissal complaint also failed: the redundancy notification gave lack of work as the reason, and he provided no evidence that this was not the case. His complaints about his contract and health and safety training were not upheld. Modestas Norvaisa’s conditions-of-employment complaint was not upheld. Mindaugas Gasiunas withdrew his complaints against Tusker Agricultural Services Limited and Tusker Steelworks Limited at the hearing.