Unfairly dismissed hotel boss offers bullying advice after €100k award

By Stephen Rogers

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A HOTEL manager awarded €100,000 after being unfairly dismissed due to her pregnancy, has advised others suffering similar treatment not to let themselves be bullied.

The Equality Tribunal awarded Denise Batt, a former general manager at the Comfort Inn on Great Denmark St in Dublin, €50,000 compensation for discrimination on grounds of gender and family status and a similar amount for victimisation.

The award was made against then owners Palmece though the hotel was operated by Choice Hotels on behalf of Palmece.

Speaking after the ruling Ms Batt, who was supported by SIPTU in the hearing, told how she had worked hard for the company since 2003, getting on very well with her superiors and securing regular bonuses.

"Then I announced my pregnancy in January 2006 and although up front they were congratulatory, the tide began to turn and pressure began to come on me," said Ms Batt.

Nonetheless she worked right up to two weeks before the baby was born and then went off on maternity leave.

"I then came back and asked if I could get one day’s parental leave even on a trial basis and additional maternity leave," she said. "They came back initially and said they did not have any problem with it. But then I got a phone call from the personnel manager to say my request had been refused."

She said she was very upset because, as a first- time mother, she wanted to go back on the shorter working week, even initially.

"Just before I went back to work, I got called in for what I was led to believe would be a hand-over meeting and when I got in they told me my role had been demoted and that the position I had been promised prior to my pregnancy was now going to the other candidate," she said. "I got very upset and said that was not fair. The next day I got a phonecall saying forget the meeting happened. So I came back to work in extreme difficulty because the manager who had looked after the hotel while I was away had also been appointed to the role which I had been promised."

It was a few months later that she announced she was pregnant again. Within two weeks she was made redundant.

"They said that the hotel did not need a manager five days a week," she said. "I offered then to go down to a two or three-day week. I had no problem with that or to job share. I offered to go anywhere else because I was free to move. When I asked four months earlier if I could go down to a four-day week they could not afford to do that. They said they needed a general manager on the premises five days a week if not six."

Since she was let go in 2007, Palmece has gone into liquidation and two separate liquidators for Palmece declined to get involved in the proceedings. Ms Batt accused Choice Hotels of washing their hands of the whole thing.

"It is very unfair. It was the management team from Choice Hotels that performed in this unprofessional manner. They are still trading very well," she said.

Choice Hotels managing director Frankie Whelehan said that while his company managed the hotel, the owners had been Palmece. He said Choice had a reputation of being a good employer to its 875 staff.

Ms Batt offered the following advice to people who find themselves in a similar position.

"Have your union onside," she said. "Don’t let it go. I was in a very vulnerable place when I was pregnant. The amount of people I have spoken to are in similar positions, a lot of them worse than mine but have never done anything about it because they were pregnant and let it go. I would say ‘don’t let it go’ because you give your life to working. I gave 20 years to the hotel industry before deciding to have a baby. I was victimised for it."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, August 24, 2010