“Costa Coffee ordered to pay €20,000 in sexual harassment case”, 17 Sep 2021

A Costa Coffee manager sexually harassed a 19-year-old female co-worker when he circulated a video of a male barista drawing male genitalia on a flat white...[on a staff Facebook messenger group]

This was two days after [he] posted a photo of himself … in his boxer shorts, or what he called 'Santa Panties' …

The Labour Court … ordered the Irish operator of Costa Coffee, MBCC Foods Ireland Ltd. to pay the worker … €20,000 compensation for the sexual harassment endured.

The award is more than five times the €3,500 [the plaintiff] was awarded by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) …

‘While the nature of such offensive behaviour may not be in the same category as physical assault, it is considerably more than harmless banter and the Court does not concur with the view of [the WRC] that the acts fall into the lowest category of misbehaviour,’ …

…[A] defence to alleged sexual harassment under the Employment Equality Act was not available to Costa Coffee ‘because of their failure to take any real steps in advance to protect the complainant from the harassment that she suffered’.

…Costa Coffee [was ordered] to develop a workplace anti-harassment and sexual harassment policy and develop an appropriate social media policy.

[The Court found] that it was 'extraordinarily unsatisfactory' that a social media platform used by employees of Costa Coffee for work purposes was not covered by a social media policy that expressly set out a prohibition … of sexual harassment …

… [adding] that sexual harassment in the workplace was 'an egregious breach of employment rights’.