A General Workers’ Union subsidiary company has been found guilty of unfair dismissal with respect to an employee who claimed she was fired for the sole reason of becoming pregnant during her probation period.

Giada Mifsud Calabrò has been awarded more than €10,000 in damages by the Industrial Tribunal after she felt aggrieved by the decision to terminate her employment at Union Print Company Limited.

In February 2016, Ms Mifsud Calabrò had been engaged as a sales executive by the GWU subsidiary for a period of two years on a full-time basis.

During proceedings, the tribunal, presided over by Franco Masini, heard that she was contractually bound to sell €75,000 of adverts in her first year. However, in August, just before the six-month probationary period was due to expire, she was notified that she was being fired on grounds of non-performance.

The fact that such a decision was communicated to her days after she had notified Union Print about her pregnancy left no doubts about the reason for her dismissal, the employee claimed.

On its part the company insisted that it had abided by the law which states that in case where there is good and sufficient cause, a pregnant employee can be fired during probation, as long as the grounds for her dismissal are specified. While denying Ms Mifsud Calabrò’s claims, the company insisted that prior to terminating her employment, she had been warned various times about her poor performance.

In its decision the tribunal noted that according to the law, in cases where a pregnant employee sought redress, it was up to the employer to prove that such a decision was not related to pregnancy.

To this end, GWU president Victor Carachi testified that the only reason why Union Print sacked the employee was “based purely on performance and nothing else”.

As a matter of fact, during proceedings it emerged that Ms Mifsud Calabrò had only sold €9,500 worth of adverts. Though the latter complained that at first she could not carry out her duty due to problems with her laptop computer, it was established that this situation was resolved after a week. Furthermore, the tribunal heard that apart from the plaintiff, one of her colleagues had also missed the sales target, but the latter was not fired.

A crucial element in the case was the lack of monthly targets in the employment contract. Such consideration was made by the tribunal in the wake of the fact that in her letter of discharge, Ms Mifsud Calabrò was told that the volume of sales reached was just “25 per cent of what is expected as the norm”.

It was pointed out that this “norm” had not been established or quantified by the employer. Had Union Print wanted to quantify the employee’s performance after six months, it should have listed the mid-year target as part of the wider objective of reaching €75,000 in annual sales, the tribunal said.

In view of this, the employee’s complaint was upheld and the company was ordered to pay €10,486 in damages.