Scientist with ‘debilitating' condition alleges discrimination by not being allowed work from home

Irish Times

2 days ago

A scientist living with 'debilitating' endometriosis has accused international medical devices firm Abbott of discriminating against her by refusing to let her work from home to ease a daily commute of nearly four hours.
The worker, who has over a decade of industry experience and advanced postgraduate qualifications, told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Tuesday she was given ten minutes to pick up her things and get off an Abbott site last autumn after being told she failed her probation.
She said she was reduced to 'crying all the way back' in a colleague's arms during the drive home.
Abbott Ireland Ltd is denying complaints of disability discrimination and discriminatory dismissal under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker, Ms X, who has been afforded anonymity by the WRC.
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Ms X was hired by Abbott in spring 2024 and spent just short of six months working in an office at an Abbott site in a county town analysing test data, but was deemed to have failed her probation and was let go that autumn, the tribunal heard.
The company's representative, Fiona Egan of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation (Ibec), submitted that Ms X failed her probation for 'conduct and performance' following a number of instances of lateness and uncertified absences from work.
It had 'nothing to do with her condition', she said.
Shaun Boylan BL, appearing for Ms X instructed by Sean Ormonde & Co Solicitors, said the firm's policy of refusing to allow probationary employees to work from home was 'implicitly discriminatory' against his client, as it put accommodations for her disability 'on hold for six months'.
Ms X said she had been diagnosed with stage two endometriosis in 2022, a condition affecting the female reproductive organs.
She said it causes her 'debilitating pain', accompanied by 'nausea, fainting and dizziness' which was at its worst during the 7-8 days of her period and required prescription-only codeine and opiate painkillers to manage.
The daily drive from Ms X's home to the Abbott site was 'coming up on a four-hour commute to work every day', adjudication officer Brian Dolan remarked during the hearing on Tuesday.
Ms X said she thought at first she should 'just endure' the commute. Her evidence was that she was 'promised in the interview that it would be a hybrid role' and that she had turned down roles elsewhere with a five-day-a-week on-site commitment because of that.
Ms X said her immediate team consisted of six or seven colleagues, but 'nobody' was in office five days a week, and 'most' were working from home.
On a date six weeks after she started, a 'very sudden' departmentwide meeting was called, at which she said a senior manager declared 'there would be no more work from home possible' at the site, barring the 'possibility' of one day a week.
Ms X said she was in 'excruciating pain' that day and found the message 'difficult to take'. She told the commission she went straight to her team leader 'in visible distress, with tears in my eyes' and proceeded to tell him she had endometriosis.
She said her team leader was 'empathetic' and 'supportive' at that stage and gave her an assurance that a 'one week in, one week out' work from home arrangement would be possible – but only once her probation was finished.
Making it in for an on-site team meeting at 9.30am meant setting out from home at 6.30am or 6.45am, Ms X said.
Over seven weeks before a probationary caution letter being issued in her final weeks on the job, Ms X was late eight times and absent without a medical cert on three occasions, leading to an occupational health referral.
She said a senior manager later told her: 'The company cannot offer more than one day work from home past your probation,' and urged her to find somewhere to live closer to the site.
The probation review continued into the following month, and concluded when her team leader called her into a conference room and read out a letter stating that her employment was being terminated, she said.
The only reason stated was: 'Your standard of performance has not met company expectations.'
'I asked why. [My team leader] said: 'Everything is in the letter,'' Ms X said.
After saying she could not continue with the meeting a company HR officer told her an outstanding pay matter could be handled by email and gave her 'ten minutes to leave, to grab [my] stuff and leave the premises'.
'Everyone was crying in the car,' she said. 'I hugged my colleague, in the car, and kept crying all the way back to Dublin,' she added.
The adjudicator, Mr Dolan, told Ms X he had the power to order her reinstatement as a remedy under the equality legislation if she was successful in the case. Ms X replied: 'I'd probably never come back to Abbott.'
The case has been adjourned to a later date, when three company witnesses, including Ms X's team leader and the senior manager are due to give evidence.