Pregnant woman awarded €18k after shop told her ‘to look better’

The shop owner has to pay a total of €18,000.

A shop owner who told his pregnant employee "to look better and appear happy" has been ordered to pay out in a pregnancy discrimination case. The woman, Karolina Poslajko, will receive €12,000 for gender discrimination, and an additional €6,000 for victimisation. The case went before the Labour Court after Kildare town-based Clelands Supermarkets Ltd appealed the ruling that Karolina was discriminated against. In court documents, Ms Poslajko said that her second pregnancy was confirmed in August, and she told her supervisor straight away, as well as giving him a doctor's note. Later that month, she was called into the business owner's office and reprimanded for her appearance. She was also told she needs to work harder. A number of weeks later, the owner called her into his office again and told her her hours would be cut from 39 to 24 because she was not working as hard as the other employees. Karolina was suffering from morning sickness at the time. Her solicitors wrote to Clelands Supermarkets Ltd in July 2015 saying that Ms Poslajko believed that the reductions that had been made because of her pregnancy. However, a couple of weeks later, she was told that her hours would be cut again because the business wasn't performing well. She did not have enough money to support her family, and resigned in March 2016. The owner claimed that he was unaware of her pregnancy and her reduction of hours were completely unrelated.