Fired B.C. marketing director asks for pay equity

A former marketing director of one of B.C.’S largest real estate developers is suing the company for almost $1 million, largely to make up for what she called a shortfall in her salary compared to her male counterparts for the past five years.

Tracy Parolin, a married mother of 10-year-old twins, said in a notice of civil claim against Cressey Development Corp. that the reason she was given that two male coworkers “made more money is because they were hungrier than her and she had other priorities, like her kids.”

And, “After returning from pregnancy leave, Ms. Parolin has been repeatedly excluded from meetings and decisions pertaining to her assigned projects on the grounds that, ‘You’re a mom and never here,’ or ‘You are too busy being a mom, so decisions are made without you.’”

The damages for the alleged wrongful dismissal and breach of contract from Cressey Development include $150,000 in total for “injury to dignity, feelings and selfrespect,” “bad faith” dismissal, and punitive damages, according to a notice of civil claim filed recently in B.C. Supreme Court.

She is also asking for, “A declaration that the defendant discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of her sex and family status,” according to the writ.

Parolin, 52, who worked at Cressey for 18 years and made $94,600 a year, compared her pay as marketing director with that of two male employees in comparable jobs. One, who had worked there for four years, makes more than $150,000 a year, and the other, with 10 years’ service, earns $250,000.

Parolin, who said she wrote to owner Scott Cressey in February to “raise her concerns over the lack of a salary increase,” said four months later she faced a “constructive dismissal” — a fundamental change in a worker’s job that forced her to resign.

Cressey “constructively dismissed the plaintiff and breached the employment contract with the plaintiff when it insisted she return to work to the office on regular hours,” demoting her to marketing manager and continuing to pay her “less than her male counterparts with less experience and service.”

She is seeking $800,000 for negligent and/or intentional misrepresentation or for breach of contract, according to the writ, in addition to $150,000 in other damages.

Parolin started working for Cressey in 2005 as a development manager, and in 2012 went on pregnancy leave. She was asked to return to work after nine months on reduced hours and was allegedly told by vice-president Hani Lammam that her work hours could remain flexible for the “foreseeable future,” and she had been working flexible hours since.

In 2018, she became marketing director for a discussed wage increase and potential bonus structure, and another vice-president, Julian Kendall, acknowledged she was paid less than two other men in the development group, namely Patrick Lanigan and Nathan Gurvich, because they were “hungrier”.

She had worked Monday to Friday in the office — from 9 a.m. to 2:50 p.m., and afterwards from home when required — until COVID hit in March 2020 and she was given permission to work from home, permission that was confirmed in June 2020 and June 2021. She had the “expectation that working at home was a term of her employment contract.”

After discussing a raise with other superiors with no success, in February she wrote to Cressey. He referred her to another senior employee and she didn’t hear back from Cressey.