Hotel employee awarded €35,384 after losing job while on maternity leave

By Gordon Deegan

An employment law expert said today that it is high time some employers came into the 21st century when dealing with women in the workplace.

Solicitor, Richard Grogan was commenting as a female client of his was awarded €35,384 after returning from her maternity leave to find that her post was gone.

In the case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), a midlands hotel has been ordered to pay the worker - who is a foreign national - after it was found to have discriminated against her.

Mr Grogan said: “The attitude of some employers towards pregnant employees or those on maternity leave is sickening to me.

While I am an employment law solicitor and should be immune to this as it nearly endemic as regards non Irish nationals, I am not so immune and hope I never will be.

He said that his client has got justice in the case “but unfortunately an award can never really compensate my client for losing a job she loved. My client has been vindicated with a substantial award which indicates the severity of the breaches”.

The woman went on maternity leave in 2015.

However, on her scheduled return to work in 2016 the woman found that there was no role for her and she was compelled to take gardening leave.

Mr Grogan told the WRC hearing that his client’s maternity leave was a specially protected period for her employment.

Mr Grogan told the WRC that his client was called into a meeting while on maternity leave and was told she was being made redundant.

All alleged breaches of workplace legislation and any alleged discrimination were refuted by the hotel.

The hotel told the WRC that it was restructuring as there was a drop in weddings from 84 to 72 towards the end of 2015 and that various cost saving measures were put in place.

The manager of the hotel said that the role of banqueting manager was being absorbed into his own role.

He said that he had invited the woman to consider alternative positions but she declined to do so.

The WRC Adjudication Officer, Emer O’Shea found that the employee was unfairly selected for redundancy and upheld her claim for unfair dismissal.

Ms O’Shea said that she was not satisfied that the hotel presented any evidence of having utilised a transparent and fair matrix to identify the positions for redundancy and / or to explore alternative options to redundancy.

In relation to the woman’s unfair dismissal, the WRC has ordered the hotel to pay €15,000.

Ms O’Shea also found the claimant was discriminated against on the grounds of gender when she was unsuccessful in her job application for a new role of Wedding Co-ordinator and awarded her €10,000.

Ms Shea stated that no plausible explanation was furnished by the hotel for putting this post out to external competition in circumstances where compulsory redundancies were being contemplated.

Ms O’Shea also ordered the hotel to pay €10,384 after she found the hotel to be in breach of the Protection of Maternity Act when the woman lost her job.