Unfair dismissal or justified?

iv-tecman

iv-tecman

iv-tecman

Soldato
Joined
12 May 2005
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8,384
Not too sure how to deal with this, neither does my girlfriend. Basically she’s 5 months pregnant – not something we’d planned however its now happened and we are actually quite pleased as even though we’ve not been together all that long we seem to be doing a decent job of making a nice life with each other.

We live together, its quite cosy and nothing over the top. Cheap affordable rent, low council tax basic outgoings and my wage does comfortably cover our living costs however she works as a full time cleaner, however has been slowly since learning about being pregnant been trying to reduce some of the hours, not to much success it must be said. The cleaning contract she has with a domestic cleaning firm is for 37.5 hours, and ok since falling pregnant she has taken a number of days off sick, due to being totally fatigued. Its hard work cleaning, some of the houses have been reported to me by her as being complete messes, and require hard work, and lets face it, being pregnant is hard on any woman..!! Can’t expect her to keep up 37.5 hours of cleaning a week, totally un-reasonable. And not safe for baby and I’m worried about her.

We both discussed that maybe it would be better to try and drop some hours off, but she wants to try and make it till she can take three months maternity leave, she’ll quit after the leave anyhow. We just wanted the three months wage coming in, as she and neither do I see any point in working for min hourly wage once the baby is born. I can support us all on my wage, I’m in a fortunate position to do this – thankfully.

However, now its starting to get to the point where she’s getting pains down her sides form the cleaning work, and is coming home stressed, worried and tired, so decided to tell the cleaning contractors that she’s pregnant and what options does she have. They’ve decided to let her go, so now she has no job at all. They state being pregnant isn’t productive to their core business and there is no work for her, basically she’s been laid off.

I’m more of a principle man, as to be honest pleased she’s not working, cleaning someone else’s home and risking our baby for min hourly wage just doesn’t seem right to me. However I just don’t see how it’s fair to effectively sack someone due to being pregnant..?? It’s a bit of rock and a hard place. She was employed, but I do kind of see how the work isn’t suitable for a pregnant woman. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she’s perfectly fine if its moderate work, but some of the cleans aren’t and this is the issue..

I don’t know the legal standings, but surely they should have offered her part time work, even allowed her to work if she wanted till maternity leave could be taken?

Maybe someone on this forum can advise?

Me personally at 5 months pregnant then cleaning work maybe isn’t suitable, but getting the push sounds like they didn’t want to pay maternity leave and used it as a way to sack a hard working person, just because they are expecting in the next 4 months.. So unfair….!! ‘just looking for viewpoints. No lazy cow, or deal with it comments, or you did the deed live with it comments…. Just looking for constructive comments on what anyone thinks of this..

Thanks..
 
Sorry to hear that, iv-tecman. If she has been employed with the company for more than one month, was not on probation and has a written contract of employment, such a sacking as you described is indeed underhanded and can be challenged. Try to get everything together in terms of paperwork, review it, and get a written letter of dismissal from her employer, stating the reason for dismissal as above; then seek legal advice.

Edit: On second reading, you did not even mention that she was given a notice period or settlement terms of any kind! What shocking behavior! At the very least you can challenge the contractor on these grounds and see what they say. As before, attempt to get as much in writing from them as humanly possible - verbal disputes rarely hold up in legal terms.
 
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It was a full time cleaning job, domestic cleaning contractors that employ both full time and agency staff. She was full time, and she was given verbal notice of one week. As she was paid weekly, this will be her last week. I’ve been texting back and forth etc all day, she’s too upset at the moment (hormonal, pregnant, recently sacked oops. Not good) but if she gets anything in writing what do I need?
 
Informing your employer that you are pregnant requires them to conduct a risk assessment of your role and if no longer suitable for you they must find you an alternative role to fulfil whilst maintaining your contract. They cannot use pregnancy as a means of dismissal. If you have this in writing contact ACAS immediately and seek professional legal advice.

In fact, seek advice from ACAS anyway. If pregnancy is their sole reason for dismissal then they are way out of line and you can throw the book at them.

www.acas.org.uk
 
My old man is somewhat of an expert in these matters, and throughout his whole business life he has never employed a female of child bearing age for this reason. He has advised me to do then same should I ever end up a business owner myself.

I am not sure of the specifics but as far as I can remember him describing this 'once they're pregnant they get different rights and it's not just a case of laying them off'. I also seem to remember something along the lines of him going on about finding suitable work for pregnant women to do whilst they are not on maternity leave should their regular job be considered too stressful/physically demanding etc.'

So in short, if my old man the business owner is scared of employing females of child bearing age, chances are he's read up before making this decision which would make it illegal for the cleaning company to lay off your g/f because she's pregnant.

Good luck with sorting all of this out dude!

EDIT: SHadowman's post above appears to confirm some of this.
 
shoes said:
My old man is somewhat of an expert in these matters, and throughout his whole business life he has never employed a female of child bearing age for this reason.
Click to expand...

Thats one hell of a demographic can you be more specific as to what your dad means as "Child Bearing Age" because this does range from about 12 - 80 odd and that would definitly be descrimination?
 
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"They state being pregnant isn’t productive to their core business and there is no work for her, basically she’s been laid off".
Incredibly unusual to hear something like this. Our experience tells us pregnant women are feared (I'm not talking about hormones either!) by employers. They can end up in a right mess very quickly.
Get down to CAB.
 
Excerpt from one of the ACAS guides on discrimination :

Pregnancy and maternity
A woman is protected against discrimination on the grounds of
pregnancy and maternity during the period of her pregnancy and the
statutory maternity leave which she is enititled to. During this period,
pregnancy and maternity discrimination cannot be treated as sex
discrimination.
Discrimination against someone because they associate with another
person or are perceived to have one of the protected discrimination
characteristics is also against the law.
Click to expand...
 
Mate's wife had the same thing, she told them she was pregnant and was laid off the next day, they phoned a no win no fee legal firm and they took the firm to the cleaners (excuse the pun), most small firms have little idea about employment law.

I think they got the salary between laid off and the due date plus the maternity plus compensation.

Was she employed for over a year?
 
If it's your girlfriend first pregnancy, SHE shouldn't be working at 5 months.:(, she should be taking it easy.

Rant over, they just can't dismiss you for being up the duff.
You can take your employer to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. The law in the UK stipulates that it is unfair for women to be dismissed from work because they are pregnant. It does not matter whether you have worked part-time or full-time for your employer, and you don’t have to have worked for your employer for a minimum period in order to be able to bring a case to tribunal.

I don't think this has change, you have a good case.

Good idea phoning a no win no fee legal firm.
 
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Cheers, I know when we discussed this over the weekend we was expecting her to be offered less strenuous work, then wait till maternity leave, take this and then quit. She never had any intentions of returning once baby born, and I fully support this.

I also think its unfair dismissal and I’m going to try and get written paperwork and take it from there. But what a right mess, I think they want to avoid paying for someone who will, lets face it be a heck of a lot less productive..

She had nearly a week off a month or so ago as was so ill, got away without telling them as she was worried they’d lay her off once they found out.
 
iv-tecman said:
It was a full time cleaning job, domestic cleaning contractors that employ both full time and agency staff. She was full time, and she was given verbal notice of one week. As she was paid weekly, this will be her last week. I’ve been texting back and forth etc all day, she’s too upset at the moment (hormonal, pregnant, recently sacked oops. Not good) but if she gets anything in writing what do I need?
Click to expand...
You need to find out on what grounds they're sacking her.
 
Yup as has been said if they can't provide suitable work for a pregnant woman's physical condition then they have to start paying her maternity leave from now, they can't just sack her.
 
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