€12k compensation for mum not allowed return to role held before maternity leave
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruled that Eurotech Renewables Limited of Castleblayney, Co Monaghan has discriminated against former worker, Leanne McGuinness, on grounds of family status.
Ms McGuinness, who joined the company in February 2020, claimed she was not allowed to return to the role of administration manager that she held prior to going on her second period of maternity leave.
A representative of Eurotech Renewables denied the claim and maintained that the complainant had been temporarily laid off due to various economic reasons that had nothing to do with her maternity leave.
In evidence, Ms McGuinness said it was agreed that she would work a four-day week after she returned to work in November 2021 following an earlier period of maternity leave.
She told the WRC that her role was filled by a temporary employee when she commenced her second period of maternity leave in December 2022.
Ms McGuinness said she was phoned by a company director shortly before she was due to return to work in September 2023 to state that he had a new role for her.
However, she was informed by the director two days before her scheduled return that the company could not afford to take her back 'at the moment'.
However, Ms McGuinness said the correspondence ended with the director saying that Eurotech Renewables was 'regretful and saddened to have to let you go from the company', which she took to mean that she was dismissed.
The WRC heard she wrote back to the company to express her shock but also to state that she was fully entitled to return to work in her original post 'if the new role is not there'.
Ms McGuinness said the director told her by phone that her old role was not available as it was being filled by another person on a full-time basis.
However, she said the director wrote to her again in October 2023 in which he stated that she had been placed on temporary lay-off but that a new role of 'service department receptionist' was available.
Ms McGuinness said she believed the company was seeking to re-classify her dismissal as a temporary lay-off to limit 'their obvious legal exposure'.
She outlined how she was given a deadline to respond to the offer of the alternative role, which she ignored and instead submitted a complaint to the WRC.
Ms McGuinness said she had suffered a series of discriminatory acts, including when she was informed that she could not return to her former role after her maternity leave was over as a consequence of her former four-day arrangement.
She also claimed the offer of the alternative role represented a demotion.
However, Eurotech Renewables said Ms McGuinness had requested that she could return to a part-time role on her return to work in September 2023.
The company claimed it was agreed that she would return to a customer service role when her request could not be accommodated.
It maintained it experienced a significant downturn in its business around the same time and noted three other staff were also placed on a temporary lay-off.
Eurotech Renewables said Ms McGuinness was also the first person to be contacted about a return to work following such lay-offs but she did not respond.
WRC adjudication officer, Brian Dolan, said any reasonable employer in the circumstances of the case would have allowed Ms McGuinness return to the same role and offered the alternative position to the recently-hired member of staff.
Mr Dolan noted that the company had not removed Ms McGuinness as an employee with the relevant authorities even though correspondence to her had read 'much like a letter of dismissal'.
He concluded that Ms McGuinness was placed on unpaid lay-off before any other staff member solely on the basis of her absence due to maternity leave.
Mr Dolan said she was presented with her removal from work as a fait accompli and was offered no real opportunity to advocate for her return to employment.
He also observed that her former role was not considered for lay-off by the company.
'It is apparent that the complainant suffered discrimination on the grounds of availing of maternity leave,' said Mr Dolan.
He ordered the company to pay €12,480 – the equivalent of six months' pay – to Ms McGuinness in compensation for the effects of the discrimination.
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