question for a friend who fell pregnant during trial period.

nadmaj

Hi ya,

A friend of mine was newly employed in her new job on a trial basis. the trial basis ended and she fell pregnant but didn't know she was 4 months pregnant until she got a letter from hospital honestly ( she has medical problems and was on various medication and so not had signs,symptoms of pregnancy) before she got a chance to tell her employer, they had found out about her pregnancy, extended the trial period after the inital period ended and then dismissed her.

She's absolutely gutted about this and feels really let down by her employer, is there anything she can do.

thanks

jweb2k

Does she have proof the reason for her dis-mission was pregnancy?

PaulLuke

Before anyone can even start to think about whether or not anything actionable has happened more information is needed.

Can you give an approximate timeline of when the original trial period ended, when the employer found out about the pregnancy and when the trial period was extended. Also, what reason was given for (a) extending the trial period and (b) terminating your friend's employment.

As an aside, although it would breach employment legislation if the decision to dismiss was in any way connected to the pregnancy, proving such a link can be extremely difficult and may not be worth the hassle.

surreysaver

jweb2k wrote: »

Does she have proof the reason for her dis-mission was pregnancy?

Can the employer prove it wasn't pregnancy related?

jweb2k

surreysaver wrote: »

Can the employer prove it wasn't pregnancy related?

tbh, that's quite easy with trial basis jobs!

McKneff

How did her employers find out about her pregnancy?

GPedro

McKneff wrote: »

How did her employers find out about her pregnancy?

Quite! If she didn't tell them, who did?

To be honest, I really think she's onto a loser with this anyway - an employer doesn't need a very good reason to terminate employment during a probationary period. Her only possible route would be to go down the discrimination avenue - I'd suggest speaking to CAB before considering this though.

fablad75

They can give any number of reasons for not confirming someone - unless she has proof that she really was doing well (eg glowing one-to-one reports, etc) I would say that it's pointless.

Anyway, does she REALLY want to work for a company that would dismiss people who are pregnant?

Zazen999

If she didn't tell them about the pregnancy; how does she know they know and how did they find out?

All very strange; are you sure they just weren't happy with her work and she didn't pass the probation?

RobertoMoir

nadmaj wrote: »

before she got a chance to tell her employer, they had found out about her pregnancy,

How?

nadmaj wrote: »

extended the trial period after the inital period ended and then dismissed her.

Extending someone's trial period is a way of giving them a final chance if you think they are a good fit for a job, have a lot of potential but are performing very slightly under the required standard. Why would they do that for pregnancy? Or if her trial period had ended, presumably satisfactory, and was then "extended" afterwards for whatever reason then surely she has documentation that the trial period ended? Or a letter saying why it was being extended at the very least.

Are you sure you have the full story here? I wonder how the company sees it? I'm not trying to defend a company who are behaving in a sexist manner, I'm just not sure that we have the full story of what happend here.

woody01

surreysaver wrote: »

Can the employer prove it wasn't pregnancy related?

The employer doesnt have to.

This sounds to me that she just wasn't up to the job.
The extended and she didn't respond well enough.