The female manager of an Oliver area ski resort, who was paid 25% less than her male predecessors, has failed to prove she earned less because she was a woman.

The BC Human Rights Tribunal found that while Mt. Baldy Resort’s former general manager, Caroline Sherrer, was paid less than men who once had her job, her lower wage was a business decision because the ski resort was in financial trouble.

“There is no dispute that Ms. Sherrer was paid significantly less than the two men who preceded her. I accept that her role was substantially similar… to theirs,” the Tribunal said in a May 8 decision. “However, I find that the disparity in wages was not based on Ms. Sherrer’s sex. Rather… that Ms. Sherrer’s lower salary was based on a shift in the investors’ vision and ambitions for the resort, and the resort’s ongoing financial difficulties.”

The Tribunal said that the men who have since replaced her have been paid a similar salary.

The decision said Sherrer has 30 years of experience in the ski industry and took a job as operations manager for Baldy Mountain Resorts in October 2019.

She soon realized that her $58,000 salary plus $5,000 bonus was less than that of previous male managers, who had made $72,000 plus bonuses.

Sherrer quit at the end of the 2021 ski season and later took the ski resort and its chairman, Victor Tsao, to the Human Rights Tribunal, arguing she’d been discriminated against because of her gender.

The decision said Tsao is a Vancouver-based lawyer and investor who in 2016, arranged with a group of clients and friends to purchase Mt. Baldy, which was in receivership and hadn’t been operating for several years.

“There is no dispute that it was in bad shape,” the Tribunal said.

The receiver recommended a general manager with years of experience, and Tsao agreed to pay him $72,000 plus bonuses on the basis of the receiver’s recommendation.

The new general manager hired a facilities manager and an operations manager, and the ski hill was reopened in the winter of 2016.

However, after the first year, it became clear that the resort was not going to achieve what Tsao had hoped and at the end of the season, the general manager quit.

Tsao “panicked” and hired a new general manager at $84,000 a year.

“He had no idea how much a ski resort manager was paid,” the decision reads.

Realizing a real estate development wasn’t viable, and the resort was losing money, Tsao began cutting costs.

All the well-paid managers left and “in this context of heightened fiscal restraint, Sherrer arrived at the resort.

“She effectively replaced three former senior managers,” the Tribunal said, adding that she excelled at her job.

The pandemic arrived, and she “performed exceptionally well” under difficult circumstances.

“I acknowledge that Ms. Sherrer was overworked during her time at Mt. Baldy,” the Tribunal said. “She took on more responsibility and work than she thought she was signing on for, at a time when the Resort was understaffed and still in pretty bad condition… It was a frustrating, hard job.”

The Tribunal said it would not be unreasonable to find she was underpaid.

However, the Tribunal said her salary was on par with the men who took her job after she quit.

“When Mr. Tsao hired Ms. Sherrer… the business had been losing money for four years. It was becoming apparent that some of the intended projects, specifically real estate, were not going to work. There was no longer a hope of attracting a large investor,” the Tribunal said. “Mr. Tsao resolved to cut costs and focus exclusively on running the ski business, with a goal of breaking even.”

The Tribunal ruled that the salary differences were based on the business model, and not Sherrer’s sex and were not discriminatory.