Company Fails to Consider Mother’s Work Request

By Crown Content

The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal has found that a transport company indirectly discriminated against its former manager by rejecting her request to return to work part-time after having a baby.

The Tribunal found that the employer had a knee-jerk reaction to her request, submitted two months before she was due to return to work, for extra leave plus part-time work three days a week and non-standard hours (7 am to 4pm). The Tribunal said the employer had "failed to give proper consideration to whether [the employee] could perform her role on a part-time basis either under the model she put forward or some variation of".

(Occupational Health and Safety Bulletin; vol, 13, no 298, October 13 2004)