An employment tribunal (ET) recently found that a female employee was on unequal pay due to sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, and less favourable treatment due to working part time hours.
The employee in question had recently returned from maternity leave on a part time basis after having triplets and had been working for the company for seven years.
In an investigation by ET, it was found the employee had been covering their own role, along with that of pervious full-time colleague’s (for six months) before a male replacement was hired.
The replacement hires equivalent wages were more than the claimant’s, their employer justified the higher pay on ‘market forces’ and a competitive local area; however, they were unable to show that the difference between pay was unrelated to sex.
In their performance review they were provided with mixed feedback, but nothing which led them to believe they were performing below expectations, regardless they were place onto a performance improvement plan.
Over the following months the employee was told they were at risk of redundancy, the tribunal found grounds for the redundancy to be genuine but was dissatisfied with the selection process the used.
The Employment Tribunal found the respondents expectations to work outside of contractual hours to be unsustainable and unreasonable, along with stating the claimant was placed at a disadvantage due to a discriminatory performance capping policy, leaving her unable to surpass ‘achieving expectations’ due to their maternity leave.
The employee’s claim for sex discrimination, less favourable treatment on the grounds of part time working, unfair dismissal, and unequal pay were all successful, and her beliefs that the company assumed she was not performing to a standard of the male colleague due to less working hours were well founded.
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