A mother was awarded €5,000 as compensation for her disabled son who was not employed with the Eden Foundation when its subsidiary cooperative was wound down due to excessive debts.

An industrial tribunal upheld the mother’s claims that her son had been discriminated against, in breach of equal treatment in employment regulations.

Chaired by lawyer Leslie Cuschieri, the tribunal heard Pauline Vassallo claim that her son, James, had been discriminated against when his employment with Eden Cooperative Society Limited was terminated and he had not been reemployed by the Eden Foundation like other workers had been.

Ms Vassallo told the tribunal her son had been working for the cooperative of nine years. The cooperative was primarily set up in 2003 to facilitate the employment of its disabled clients, in the form of placements with local firms. Although the cooperative was not meant to be profit-making, it had racked up more than €230,000 in debt in a short time until it was wound down in 2007 and its functions were assumed by the Eden Foundation.

There had been a golden opportunity for Mr Vassallo to be re-employed by the Eden Foundation but, for some ‘unjustified reason’ this had not been done

The foundation itself later merged with Razzett tal-Ħbiberija and together operated under the Inspire Foundation brand name.

Ms Vassallo submitted that the termination of her son’s employment with the cooperative was unfair but the tribunal rejected the complaint and ruled that the dismissal was essentially a redundancy because the cooperative was debt-ridden and the decision to close down in October 2007 was therefore “ethically correct”.

However, it upheld the woman’s second complaint regarding discriminatory treatment when her son was not re-employed with the Eden Foundation as other workers had been.

The tribunal heard that Mr Vassallo had been placed with several different companies which employed people with a disability for their production lines. These included Farsons, MiddleSea Insurance and Playmobil Malta.

It heard that many of the cooperative’s clients remained in employment and had been transferred to the Eden Foundation.

The foundation’s human resources manager, Claire Ebejer, had a problem with the placement of Mr Vassallo and another client, whose relatives had complained about the job. It was feared that Mr Vassallo could not cope with the production levels required by Playmobil. It was, therefore, decided that neither of the two should be given the placement.

The tribunal noted that there had been a golden opportunity for Mr Vassallo to be re-employed by the Eden Foundation but, for some “unjustified reason”, this had not been done. It, therefore, found that Mr Vassallo had been discriminated against on the basis of disability.

While it rejected the mother’s claim of unfair dismissal, the tribunal awarded Mr Vassallo €5,000 as compensation for discriminatory treatment.

It ordered that the compensation should be reduced to €1,500 if alternative employment was found for Mr Vassallo, on condition that this was retained for at least six months.

Lawyer Ivan Sammut appeared for the Vassallos.