KEY POINTS:
A woman who said her boss regarded her pregnancy as an obstacle to her advancement has missed out on her personal grievance claim for discrimination and distress.
But the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has awarded Nicky McFarlane $20,000 in wage arrears and compensation for losing the use of her company car.
Mrs McFarlane, national sales manager for Charlie's juices, took a personal grievance case for unjustifiable disadvantage to the authority after she and the company were unable to resolve problems between her and Stefan Lepionka at mediation.
She was appointed to her position in July 2004. She said that in January 2006 Mr Lepionka told her her position might no longer exist and she might have a regional sales manager role.
"She says that when she protested about not being consulted, Mr Lepionka said if she did not like it she should not have got pregnant," ERA member Leon Robinson said in his adjudication.
"She says that he then offered her four months' salary in a lump sum to resign from her job and to 'go home, put her feet up and get out of the way while they make changes they needed to make'."
Mrs McFarlane said it was clear to her "that Mr Lepionka saw her pregnancy as an obstacle to her advancement with the company".
Mr Robinson said Mr Lepionka informed him Mrs McFarlane had raised her pregnancy and said she did not know whether she wanted to come back to work for Charlie's after her pregnancy.
"At no time during the conversation did I say that I was excluding Nicky from changes because she was pregnant, nor did I indicate that her pregnancy was an obstacle to her advancement within the company. These statements are wrong. The whole discussion arose out of Nicky's comments that she was not sure whether she wanted to come back and work for the company," Mr Lepionka said.
Mr Robinson found that Mrs McFarlane rejected the comments by Mr Lepionka about pregnancy and elected to continue her employment.
He found that the alleged grievances for discrimination and stress were raised out of time and that there were not grounds for granting leave to pursue them out of time and accordingly made no orders on that aspect of her claim.
But he found Mr Lepionka at fault in dealings with Mrs McFarlane over negotiations for her bonus for the financial year to March 31, 2006.
Mr Robinson said Mr Lepionka ignored Mrs McFarlane in her stated desire to negotiate and agree on key performance indicators.
While she claimed the full $20,000 allowable, Mr Robinson awarded her $18,000, and $2000 for the loss of her work car while she was on annual leave.
- NZPA
