PORTLAND, Maine — The former aquatics director of the YMCA of Southern Maine in Portland likely lost her job as a result of retaliation after she reported unsafe conditions in the workplace, the Maine Human Rights Commission found earlier this month.
Mary Gray of Cape Elizabeth was hired as the aquatics director in January 2013 and was let go that March. Part of her job was to monitor the chlorine and pH levels in the YMCA’s swimming pools, and she told commission investigator Angela Tizon that she repeatedly reported safety concerns to the YMCA’s executive director when the chemical levels were wrong.
Gray said the executive director, who no longer is employed by the YMCA, pressured her to keep the pools open when the levels were unsafe, Tizon wrote in her report. Additionally, Gray said the then-director “reprimanded her for placing too much importance on safety instead of maintaining a relationship of trust with members and maintaining internal harmony with staff,” the report stated. Gray told Tizon she believed she lost her job so the former executive director could avoid fixing the safety concerns and keep up appearances for members.
In notes from one of their meetings, the then-director told Gray that she was “bordering on coming across as obsessive” with regards to policy, water testing and pool closures. Gray said that she was forced to close the pool on two occasions because of unsafe chemical levels, and that she was reprimanded for not notifying the executive director before doing so.
A YMCA representative told Tizon that Gray was not discharged for reporting safety issues, and that in fact Gray always was praised for monitoring safety and reporting concerns. The representative said that Gray was discharged for “unacceptable interactions with her co-workers and others,” according to Tizon’s report. The YMCA representative said that Gray was warned and that management tried to help her improve, but when her behavior did not improve, she was discharged from her job.
According to the YMCA representative, when Gray closed the pool on March 2, it caused significant concern and upheaval for staff. The former executive director told Gray that officials were concerned that the YMCA’s staff and members were “picking up on a level of anxiety that had not been present before.” When the former director found out that Gray had called the pool vendor as many as 40 times over the weekend of March 2 regarding pool issues, that director decided to terminate Gray’s employment.
The Maine Human Rights Act prohibits discharging an employee because of actions that are protected under the Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act. According to the report, Tizon found that Gray established a case of retaliation by showing that she was discharged from her job shortly after she had engaged in the protected activity of reporting what she felt were unsafe chemical levels in the pool.
Although the YMCA representative produced some evidence to show that Gray lost her job because of her negative interactions with coworkers and her handling of tense situations, “in the end … [Gray] was able to show that were it not for her safety complaints, [the YMCA] would not have likely terminated her employment,” Tizon wrote.