Award for new mum sidelined by bosses
Friday September 26 2008
A MODEL employee with an excellent employment history spoke of her delight in winning one of the highest awards for pregnancy discrimination and victimisation at work.
Mother-of-two Heather Lane (35) from Roscommon, who worked for over five years with credit card provider MBNA -- now Bank of America -- was awarded €56,315 by the Equality Tribunal against the company in a pregnancy-related discrimination case.
Welcoming the "significant award", Equality Authority chief executive Niall Crowley said pregnancy related discrimination was a significant feature in their case files.
"We hope that the scale of this award will serve to dissuade employers from engaging in pregnancy related discrimination or in victimisation," he said.
Ms Lane, who started work with MBNA in October 2001 in Carrick-on-Shannon, took maternity leave in both 2004 and 2005.
She claimed had it not been for her pregnancy and maternity leave absences, she would have been promoted by the company and that her treatment in her employment deteriorated as a result of her pregnancy and maternity leave.
While on maternity leave, she expressed an interest in applying for a vacancy in the company's personnel department. But the equality officer found that shortly before returning to work, Ms Lane was discouraged from applying for the job and it was filled instead by a single person with no children who did not have the relevant qualifications and who had no experience in personnel.
On her return to work she was told to report to the payroll section where she was given no desk and no phone for the first six weeks.
Claims
She also claimed she was victimised when she was offered an enhanced redundancy package if she signed an agreement to make no further claims against the company.
Finding in her favour, the equality officer awarded her €17,000 compensation for discriminatory treatment on the grounds of gender; €6,315.84 as the difference between the basic and enhanced redundancy package that was offered to her and €33,000 in compensation for this victimisation.
Ms Lane said she was delighted at the outcome.
"It was all very negative from my point of view," she said of her treatment by the company. "Even though I had never done anything wrong they tried to come up with a memo saying they had sudden issues about my performance," she added.
