You couldn’t make it up.
Most employers know, for good or bad, that it is tricky to dismiss a pregnant woman.
But not impossible.
There are ways to part company if performance or attitude is bad, and they involve documenting meetings, setting deadlines etc, so that you can prove that the pregnancy is not the reason you’re dismissing them.
So we were shocked into silence when we received a call from a client saying that he had received an Early Conciliation form from ACAS (the first step in a tribunal case).
He had obviously dismissed someone without talking to us, so we asked for the details.
“Well, she only has 3 months service…”
So far so good, there is no protection for unfair dismissal under 2 years’ service.
“And she is 6 months pregnant…”
Uh oh.
“And she has gotten quite big and can’t bend and do the cleaning, so I fired her”
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