Head of finance told CEO she was ‘not a waitress’ at company dinner, WRC hears

The former head of finance at a cutting-edge biotech firm claims she told its chief executive officer that she was “not a waitress” after he told her a group had no red wine at a company dinner last year, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has heard.

The alleged incident in October 2022 was part of a sequence of events set out in evidence on Monday by Tracey McGann, who has accused ERS Genomics Ltd of discrimination, victimisation and discriminatory constructive dismissal in complaints under the Employment Equality Act, 1998.

“I stood up to go to the bathroom, Eric was there with the guys ... [he] turned around to me and said we’ve no red wine,” Ms McGann said of the company’s chief executive, Eric Rhodes.

“I turned around to him and said: ‘I’m not a waitress,’” she told the WRC.

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Ms McGann had previously “annoyed” the company’s owners by citing payroll data to them showing that she had been given a smaller-percentage pay rise in 2020 than any of her colleagues, all of whom were male, the WRC was told.

Although Ms McGann considered that issue to have been rectified in the following year, her case was that the company set about trying to “demote” her after she looked to move to part-time work in 2022, her solicitor Adrian Twomey said.

That summer, Ms McGann had proposed cutting her salary from €100,000 to €80,000 to fund a part-time accounts assistant to do the more “mundane” accountancy tasks at the firm so that she could reduce her working hours, Mr Twomey said.

But after seeking a candidate to fill the role with the chief executive’s sanction, Ms McGann was later told to suspend the process, with a contractor placed in the position instead and the complainant continuing to work full-time hours with no clarity on when they might be reduced, Ms McGann said in her evidence.

She said that when Mr Rhodes told her in a November 2022 Zoom call that the firm was about to advertise for a new vice-president of finance, she “immediately knew there wouldn’t be room” for her job and the new VP.

“I did say would I be expected to do the s**t part of the role?” Ms McGann said.

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Mr Rhodes’s response was that it would be “up to the head of finance to decide, but yes”, Ms McGann said.

“He cupped his hand around his mouth and said: ‘Start looking for a new job,’” she added.

She added that the vice-president role was her job by another name, but that Mr Rhodes was now inviting her to apply for it – and that if she failed, she could stay on part-time until August 2023.

“I think they were hoping I would stay on until [then] and train the new VP [vice-president] of finance in and then decide what to do with me,” she said.

She resigned her position the following January, 13 days after sending the firm a legal letter outlining her grievances, to which she said she got no response.

ERS Genomics, which was cofounded by Nobel laureate Emmanuelle Charpentier and sells licences for the cutting-edge gene-editing technology based on Prof Charpentier’s work, is contesting the claims.

Rosemary Mallon BL, appearing for the company instructed by Lewis Silkin & Co, said it was “telling” that the dinner incident and further “new allegations” made by the complainant had not been brought up before the complainant’s latest set of legal filings last Friday.

Ms Mallon submitted that the firm had still been taking legal advice on Ms McGann’s legal letter when she gave notice and had not given the firm enough time to respond – arguing that the constructive dismissal test for use of internal procedures could not be met by the complainant.

The case has been adjourned and is to be set down for two more days of hearings in early 2024, with the exact dates to be confirmed in the new year, when the complainant is to face cross-examination.