Ex-Petrotrin employee loses victimisation case

The Equal Opportunity Tribunal has dismissed a claim by a former Petrotrin employee who said she was victimised after commenting on the ethnicity of new employees.

Clarise Jupiter, who retired from Petrotrin on December 1, 2013, said she asked a question focusing on racial diversity in recruitment while at a staff event.

Jupiter said at a quarterly staff conference, during which new employees were introduced to staff, she noticed all the engineering trainees were of a singular race, and claimed this “pattern” had also occurred on the previous recruitment occasion.

During the event, participants were invited to make comments and Jupiter said she asked, "Is it possible that for prosperity, consideration be given to all races in our recruitment in exploration and development?"

Jupiter said she subsequently endured an alleged pattern of adverse employment actions, including a repeated refusal to promote her, failure to have her work appraisals completed in a timely manner or at all, and an effective demotion.

Jupiter claimed her supervisor “confessed” he was offended by the alleged statement in a subsequent meeting, but she could not provide any independent evidence or corroboration of the meeting.

She also did not provide any notes from the meeting and instead submitted into evidence a transcription of the notes she took at the meeting.

Jupiter began working at Petrotrin on September 1, 1990, as a training officer and retired on December 1, 2013, as a reservoir engineer.

She was promoted in 1997 to operation specialist and was awarded a grade 11 salary.

However, in 2004 after a reclassification exercise, she was told the salary for her position had been reclassified at grade 10, but she maintained her grade 11 salary.

In a company restructuring in 2007, the job of operations specialist was removed from the organisational chart, but Jupiter continued to function in the position.

In 2011, her position was redesignated to reservoir engineer, which was categorised as a grade 10 position. However, her grade 11 salary, along with her other terms and conditions of appointment, was unaffected by the reclassification.

The tribunal said a review of Jupiter’s communications with management at Petrotrin, up to and including the president, before her retirement revealed no mention of the alleged statement and/or any references to victimisation or retaliation linked to the alleged statement or any reference to the meeting with the supervisor.

The tribunal also said Jupiter was unable to provide any evidence she had even made the alleged statement, or readily recall the exact year of the quarterly staff meeting.

“The complainant has not provided particulars regarding the month or date of the meeting at which (the statement) was made, the persons present, or placed into evidence any record of the meeting’s proceedings or other independent evidence to corroborate the making of the statement.”

The tribunal, in its ruling on June 7, said it was unable to determine the credibility of Jupiter’s allegations and described her testimony as “dismissive/evasive” and her demeanour as bordering on “unco-operative, if not combative.”

It said her evidence fell “far short” of proving her allegations and dismissed her complaint.

Both parties were ordered to pay their own legal costs.