Pregnant Employee Awarded $174,000 for Workplace Discrimination
Wednesday 18 June 2014 @ 11.22 a.m. | Industrial Law
The Federal Court has awarded $174,000 in compensation to an employee who had no choice but to resign from her position after being subjected to pregnancy discrimination.
Facts
Samantha Sagona was a photographer employed with Piccoli Photography for over 12 years. When Sagona became pregnant, she was told by the directors of the photography company, Robert and Chrstine Piccoli, that she could continue her normal role for a short period of time only but then would need to take long service leave before she had the baby. She was told that if she returned, she could only adopt a behind the scenes role at a reduced pay as she could not continue to undertake photo shoots or have sale appointments with customers. The directors said that it “was not a good look” for her to interact with customers given her pregnancy.
Decision of the Court
Judge Whelan of the Federal Court held that these events had forced Sagona to resign from her position:
“The capacity for women to continue in employment during their pregnancy and to be able to continue with their career after having a child are matters which as a society we consider should be protected...I consider that there is a need for general deterrence with respect to both of these matters and, in particular, with respect to employees employed in small businesses.”
The Piccolis insisted that they had done everything they possibly could:
“It’s pretty tough. We were naive and inexperienced, you definitely have to get advice from the beginning.”
However, this case should highlight some very important factors for employers dealing with employee pregnancy. It cannot simply be assumed that a pregnant employee will be unable to perform her usual duties or would become some sort of hindrance by virtue of her pregnancy alone argued Giri Sivaraman, an employment lawyer at Maurice Blackburn law firm. If a business does have a genuine concern regarding a pregnant employee’s work output, then as a minimum, it should first discuss these concerns with the employee.
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