Gender Inequality Surrenders to Just in Austria, Victim Triumphs

Advisor March 29, 2018

Prejudice

One of the most controversial issues surrounding corporate world and the job market is gender discrimination. Apart from using professional experiences and academic qualifications to determine the best candidates, many employers sometimes use gender preference during hiring stage to pick their favorite prospects. However, some individuals like Peter Franzmayr don’t always bow down to defeat as they set out afterward to fight for their rights.

Gender discrimination was rejected by Peter Franzmayr as he headed to court for help

Justice was diligently sought after and served at one Austria-base court when it declared its verdict that Mr. Peter Franzmayr, a worker at the country’s ministry of transport, was cheated and disfavored due to how he was robbed of an executive position that rightfully belonged to him all because he’s a man. This action took place after his application for the job.

The unfortunate journey into the matter started seven years ago after the number two President for the Austrian Parliament, the Social Democrat (SPÖ) political figure, and the then Minister for Transport in Austria, Innovation, and Technology, Doris Bures, made a move to combine two units and this development needed a brand new managing officer.

A call for a vacancy in the role was published, and three aspirants showed interests by applying for the job. They were two males and one female. Every one of the applicants was qualified and well-fitted for such a highly prestigious post, based on their experiences. However, the only female among them, Ursula Zechner, was automatically given the job, kicking aside her male counterparts.

Before her appointment, Zechner was the chief officer for the regulation and Schienen-Control rail. However, Franzmayr’s professional documents had earlier been scored 0.25% above Zechner’s papers. He wasn’t ready to back down easily, so he headed to court to seek justice on the grounds of gender inequality.

Doris Bures, Minister for Transport, Innovation, and Technology, at a conference.

Franzmayr’s victory

According to the reports, last Monday, the Federal Administrative Court gave its judgment, and it was positive for Franzmayr. The court ordered for an immediate payment of €317,366 (close to $390,000) from the State for the caused damages. The fine showed the gap between the present salary he’s earning and exactly the amount attached to the post if he’d got the job, in addition to interests and damages.

While speaking in Vienna on the 8th of July, 2016, the Parliament President, Doris Bures, addressed the assembly at the federal level. Bures, who held the post of the country’s Transport Minister, Innovation, and Technology from 2008 to 2014, said that her decision to bestow the role to a woman instead was because of the wide gap between the way women were being represented in comparison to men.

On the other hand, the law court discovered that from the onset, there was an observable line in the manner at which the chosen candidate, Zechner, was selected in a better light and with favoritism, above the rest of the applicants, and this was stated in the judgment.

In an attempt to protect her defensive mechanisms, Bures said while speaking to newsmen, that the employment was done in compliance with every tenets and protocol of the law. She nonetheless accepted the fact that one of the reasons for the action during the recruitment exercise was because of enormous discrimination against women in roles such as this one. Bures expressed her hope that the present verdict will not attract scrutiny into the efforts and tenets of appointing women into similar positions.

When Franzmayr left the ministry, he took up the legal profession which he did for four years, after then, he went back to work as a public servant, clinching the role of a director of the municipal in Wels town in the year 2016. While there, in the early part of March, he got the appointment in the board at Asfinag that supervises the transportation activities. (Asfinag is an operating network for motorway). His appointment was given to him by Norbet Hofer, a party member of Freedom Party (FPO), and the current Minister for Transport.

Asfinag transport network in Austria has been serving a public company for years.

Concertedly, Asfinag’s website announced that the woman whom Franzmayr lost the executive post to under Bures’s tenure back in 2011, Zechner, had also accepted an offer in the same Asfinag at the beginning of March. Her job was the managing director who would be in charge of businesses and marketing issues.