A meatpacking worker who said she was transferred to physically tougher duties after telling her manager she was pregnant – before he cut her shifts – has been awarded €20,000 for maternity-related discrimination.
General operative Thayane Sousa was awarded the sum on foot of a complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against Asba Meats Ltd in Shannon, Co Clare in a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) decision published today.
Ms Sousa had been working at the halal meat plant on and off since 2022, and told her line manager, Fahad Khushi, that she was pregnant around two weeks after she returned to work from a break in employment in July 2024, the tribunal heard.
Giving evidence through a Portuguese-language interpreter to a hearing in June this year, Ms Sousa told the tribunal there was "an immediate and noticeable change in attitude" towards her as soon as she disclosed her pregnancy.
She explained that she was reassigned to tasks outside her job description which were "significantly more physically demanding", including the boning of meat.
Ms Sousa told the hearing – which the meat plant's management failed to attend – that she had to assume this was an attempt to force her out of her job.
She said her working hours were also "substantially reduced" by her employer. Her evidence was that her contract stipulated a 40-hour working week for €508 in wages, though her usual schedule was 35 hours a week at the national minimum wage.
Ms Sousa said that after disclosing her pregnancy, her hours were cut back from 35, and she was not scheduled to work at all on some occasions.
While other workers continued to get "at least four days" a week when there was less work available, she only received two days’ work, she said.
Adjudicator Ewa Sobanska noted text messages exhibited by Ms Sousa in which the worker made requests to have her working hours restored but got "no positive response".
Ms Sobanska noted that Ms Sousa’s supervisor informed her there was "no work available" and advised her to "take rest".
There were also "repeated inquiries regarding delayed salary payments," Ms Sobanska noted.
Ms Sobanska wrote in her decision that Ms Sousa’s evidence about being assigned more physically demanding work after putting her employer on notice she was pregnant was "uncontested".
The worker’s evidence regarding her working hours was backed up by documentary evidence as well, the adjudicator added.
Ms Sobanska concluded there was enough evidence to support an inference of gender discrimination. Asba Meats had a case to answer, but had failed to engage at all, she noted.
"I find that the respondent has failed to discharge the burden of proof which it bore in that regard. Consequently, I find that the respondent discriminated against the complainant on the ground of her gender," Ms Sobanska wrote.
She awarded Ms Sousa €20,000 in compensation.
The case is the third ruling against Asba Meats at the WRC in the last 18 months.
