A woman has been awarded €20,000 in compensation after a bridal wear firm refused to allow her to return to work following maternity leave.
Olga Seniv claimed she was not permitted to resume employment at the Dublin-based bridal designer Tamem Michael after going on maternity leave in 2007.
She also alleged that a person employed to carry out her duties while she was on leave had continued to be employed by the company.
Ms Seniv, who went on maternity leave in September 2006, said she contacted her employer about returning to employment in May 2007 but was informed there might not be any work for her. Ms Seniv said that following further contact with her employer, she was told she would not be taken back because someone else was doing her job.
Ms Seniv's employer denied discriminating against her, saying that she was due to return back to work in March 2007 but had not been contactable. Tamem Michael claimed the complainant and her husband contacted them the following month and asked them to write a letter extending the maternity leave to May so that Ms Seniv could continue obtaining her maternity allowance.
Tamem Michael said it agreed to this request and also undertook to help the complainant find work closer to home to avoid a three-hour daily commute to the company's premises.
The bridal wear firm claimed that Ms Seniv, who had been employed by the firm since November 2004, had expressed the wish not to return to work but that her husband had made a number of threatening calls demanding that the company encourage his wife to return to work. The designer also denied another person had been hired to replace Ms Seniv but did admit to having trained up someone else to perform many of the duties she had previously performed.
The Equality Tribunal ruled the firm had unfairly dismissed Olga Seniv on the ground of gender by not permitting her to return to work after her maternity leave, pursuant to Section 8(6) of the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2008. It awarded Ms Seniv €20,000 in compensation, which it said "reflects the seriousness the Tribunal and other employment bodies attach to women's maternity rights."
In a second maternity leave-related case last month, Tanya O'Flaherty was awarded €16,000 compensation after her employer Univenture Ireland Ltd was found to have discriminated against her by failing to allow her to return to the position she held prior to going on maternity leave in August 2007.
