Pregnant employee wins case against law firm

But given that these days 'child-bearing age' can be anything from 16 to over 40, that's probably over 50% of all the working women in the country?

How do you suppose employers are going to fill all their vacancies by employing no-one falling into this catagory? We have several call centres, and I would estimate this group of people account for about 80% of all our employees.

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It looks like the legal fraternity can come unstuck just as easily as any other employers even though one might think that their knowledge and interpretation of the law would be second to none. The report of 27th July highlighted International Law Firm Herbert Smith falling foul of the law when dealing with a lady on maternity leave and now this company has likewise fallen foul of an employment tribunal over their dealings with a pregnant employee. Both cases demonstrated that the ladies concerned had been wrongly treated.

I was vilified by two contributors to this forum for having the temerity to suggest that there would be a backlash by employers over issues of pregnancy and maternity leave which was costing them money and inconvenience - not to mention resentment by other staff who had to pick up the tasks normally undertaken by those absent on maternity leave. By way of example I gave the example of a doctors' practice that regretted employing a woman as she had been absent for 2 of her 3 years of service on maternity leave.

Glad to see that the EOC support my supposition by stating that "some employers may deliberately avoid hiring women of childbearing age".