CAROLYN ARMSTRONG was sacked for being pregnant - after telling her boss that she would not have a baby. She gave the pledge at a job interview, an industrial tribunal heard yesterday. And without it she would not have landed the ú83-a-week job "in a month of Sundays." Carolyn had wanted to concentrate on her career as a personnel officer after four attempts to have a baby all ended in tragic miscarriages. But she became pregnant - and was dismissed from F.A. Gill Ltd., of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, after working there for 14 months. Now the case of Carolyn and her baby son, Nicholas, who was born in January, may have raised a big legal problem. Tribunal chairman Roy Handforth said the outcome could affect the careers of professional women in top executive jobs who became pregnant.
Carolyn, 32, of Rookswood Copse, Wildwood, Stafford, claims that her dismissal was unfair. But Mr Robert Orme, counsel for her firm, said the meat supply company was entitled to sack her despite employment regulations protecting the jobs of pregnant women. Mr Orme, who made the "month of Sundays" remark, said her important job could not remain vacant for long or be done by a temporary replacement. The tribunal heard that Carolyn was off work last June and July on doctor's orders to save another miscarriage. The company's managing director, Mr Christopher Gill, said her employment ended in October when he decided she was not capable of doing her job. Training programmes were falling behind and directors were doing her job, he added.
Carolyn, married to a social worker, admitted telling Mr Gill that she did not intend to become pregnant. But it did not amount to a promise. "How can you promise a thing like that?" she said.
The tribunal in Birmingham adjourned. A date will be fixed for its judgment.
