Landmark ruling in pregnancy job case

By AMIE RICHARDSON

A woman made redundant within hours of telling her employer she was pregnant has been awarded $8000 for discrimination in a landmark employment case.

The Complaints Review Tribunal has ruled that Chrissie Anderson, an Auckland legal executive, was indirectly discriminated against because she was pregnant - the first such ruling in New Zealand.

Indirect discrimination occurs when an employer imposes a condition of employment that is not discriminatory in itself, but has the effect to discriminate against the employee.

Mrs Anderson was offered a replacement job she could not take because she was pregnant and had a young child.

Mrs Anderson's lawyer said the decision widened the application of direct discrimination and brought New Zealand human rights law into line with its Australian and British counterparts.

The hearing was before chairwoman Susan Bathgate in Auckland last December.

Mrs Anderson was working part-time for Claymore Management in September 2000. At that stage she had a 1-year-old child. The day she told her employer, Gregor John Barclay, she was pregnant, she was told her position was to be disestablished.

She was offered a full-time senior secretarial role but was unable to take it because of her family commitments.

She complained unsuccessfully to the Human Rights Commission on the grounds of both direct and indirect discrimination.

She said her redundancy had been indirectly discriminatory because she had been offered a full-time role she could not fill, and directly discriminatory because her announcement of the pregnancy was a contributing factor to her redundancy.

Mrs Anderson then took the case to the tribunal, claiming $20,000 for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings. The tribunal found in her favour.

Her lawyer, Chris Patterson, said New Zealand employees "could now enjoy the same protections from discrimination that are currently available to employees in a number of other Commonwealth countries".

Claymore Management directors said they would file an appeal today.

Although the tribunal recognised the company had to dissolve the part-time position and establish it on a full-time basis because of business reasons, the tribunal still found in favour of Mrs Anderson for discrimination.

Claymore Management saw this as a contradiction but would not comment further.

During the hearing defence lawyers Stephen Langton and Emma Rollinson said Mrs Anderson's role was disestablished for genuine commercial reasons. Because of an increased workload Claymore Management needed to establish a full-time secretarial position, they said.

Mrs Anderson was consulted before any decisions were finally taken and she was invited to apply for the position but chose to resign instead. They denied that the redundancy resulted from the announcement of the pregnancy.