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Made redundant due to maternity/dismissals
01 October 2005
- We acted for a pregnant woman employed by a property company at the time of a business transfer. She discovered that she was the only employee whose contract wasn't transferred to the new business, because of her pregnancy. This meant she was the only employee who would be out of a job. The company added insult to injury when they explained it to her with the words, "Obviously, you won't be transferred", as if pregnant women couldn't be expected to have the same rights as other employers. We managed to settle the claim on behalf of our client without going to tribunal.
- A manager at a major national law firm was dismissed whilst on maternity leave following a sham redundancy procedure. She was advised that her role had been made redundant but that she could apply for an alternative vacancy, for which she would have to compete with her temporary maternity cover. This was for a position identical in all but name. Our client stated that she believed the positions were the same, and refused to apply on that basis. We succeeded in settling her claim for a substantial sum.
- In another case, our client, who was employed by a major UK charity, was called to a meeting at the end of her maternity leave and told that the charity did not want her back. They gave her no explanation for this. She did a job share and the other person sharing the job remained in place. The circumstances were very distressing for our client. However, we were able to secure her a very substantial settlement, by way of compensation.
- In another claim of discrimination on the basis that the redundancy was due to pregnancy, we issued tribunal proceedings on behalf of our client. The Employment Tribunal ruled in favour of our client on the basis that she had been discriminated against due to pregnancy, because her employer had made no efforts to find her suitable alternative employment despite knowing she was pregnant.
This was a particularly good win in difficult circumstances, since the decision to dismiss our client had been made prior to her announcing her pregnancy. - We recently acted for a City analyst who experienced discrimination following her maternity leave. On her return, she discovered that some of her duties had been transferred to other colleagues, as a result of which she was limited in the amount of work she could generate. She complained, but nothing was done about it. Rather, only six months later, she was selected for redundancy over the person her work had been transferred to, on the basis that she had generated less work. We threatened proceedings for sex discrimination, unfair dismissal and the non-payment of her bonus. We achieved settlement on all counts without going to court.