Virgin Blue PR executives claim airline made them redundant because they were pregnant

Two former Virgin Blue public relations staff are to launch legal action in the Federal Court claiming they were made redundant by the airline because they were pregnant.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn announced it would file a case with the Federal Court on behalf of the two executives, who do not wish to be named, in coming weeks after a Fair Work Australia mediation hearing in early February failed to resolve the matter.

The women worked together as part of the airline’s eight-person public relations team until mid-2010, when they and another woman who was set to go on parental leave were made redundant.

Maurice Blackburn principal Terri Butler claimed the women were not consulted before their roles were made redundant, as is Virgin Blue policy.

Butler also says the policy demands that alternate employment opportunities must be sought in the case of redundancies and that the women received positive performance reviews prior to their redundancies.

“My clients’ skills, extensive experience and good performance remained relevant to Virgin Blue. They were discriminated against for being pregnant and on maternity leave,” Butler said.

The women claim they were subjected to inappropriate comments about their physical appearance when pregnant and also claim they heard a member of Virgin Blue’s executive management team say that “all females should be on contracts so that when they get pregnant it is easy for the company to get rid of them”.

Virgin Blue has strenuously rejected the allegations. It says it encourages female employees in its workforce and is one of the few companies with 50% female representation in its executive team.

Industrial relations lawyer Peter Vitale says the case is likely to involve an adverse action claim under the Fair Work Act.

If that is the case the onus is usually on the company to show that it did not act in an unlawful manner rather than the claimants having to prove their case.

“It illustrates a preference for the use of the Fair Work Act over anti-discrimination legislation. It will be an interesting test case for anti-discrimination provisions of the Fair Work Act,” Vitale says.

He says in these cases the employer needs to show they had a need for genuine redundancies and selected the employees to be made redundant in a non-discriminatory fashion.