Dismissal and pregnancy and other parental rights 



Dismissing a woman because she is pregnant, or for any reason connected with her pregnancy, is automatically unfair (section 99(1)(a), ERA 96). 



Dismissing a woman during her maternity leave is automatically unfair if the reason for dismissal is that she has given birth, or any other reason connected with her having given birth (section 99(1)(b), ERA 96).



As long as the main reason for the dismissal is to do with her pregnancy or maternity, it will be automatically unfair, even if there might be other reasons for the dismissal.


The protection against automatically unfair dismissal for pregnancy or maternity reasons extends to temporary employees (Webb v EMO Cargo (UK) Limited [1994] QB 718).



It also extends to the non-renewal of a fixed-term contract where the reason for non-renewal is that the woman will be unavailable for work at the start of the new term because of pregnancy. The EAT said that any other conclusion would encourage employers to try to avoid laws banning pregnancy discrimination by issuing successive fixed-term contracts (Caruana v Manchester Airport [1995] UKEAT 687/94/1411).



Dismissing employees for exercising maternity, parental, paternity or adoption leave or shared parental leave rights is automatically unfair (see Chapter 9). For information about the enhanced protection on redundancy, see Chapter 11, page 429.


Dismissing a woman for a pregnancy-related illness or for any other reason connected to pregnancy or maternity is likely to amount to sex, pregnancy or maternity discrimination. For more information, see Chapter 7, pages 225 and 228.