Six nursery employees were unfairly dismissed, tribunal finds
A NURSERY worker who feared losing her home while on maternity leave is one of six workers to have been unfairly dismissed, a tribunal has found.
The tribunal heard that Appletree Day Nursery, in Cardiff Bay, closed on October 28, 2016, and 12 staff members were made redundant with two weeks’ notice.
Owners Peter and Victoria Buttle, who have three other nurseries under the same name in Llanishen, Cardiff, Swansea, and Magor, opened up another nursery in Cardiff’s Ocean Way in 2017, but staff at the original Cardiff Bay nursery in Dunleavy Drive were not offered new roles.
At a Wales Employment Tribunal held yesterday in Cardiff, Appletree Day Nursery was found to have unfairly dismissed six employees.
Of those, two employees were also found to have been victimised. They were Laura Edwards and a woman who did not wish to be named (Employee A), who were both on maternity leave when the redundancies were made and saw delays in receiving maternity pay.
Employee A was also found to have suffered discrimination after her employers dismissed her while failing to notify her of the issues surrounding the closure of the nursery.
The other claimants were Joanna Mabey, Chantal Lawday, Chidi Jarvis and Sonia Clarke.
A judgement document, which summarised the tribunal panel’s decision in favour of the claimants, said: “For both claimants (Ms Edwards and Employee A) late payments occurred in six months; the largest delay in making payment came after the Employment Tribunal claims were presented, with the longest period of delay being 10 days (payment due on March 31 not being made until April 10, 2017).
“We accept (Employee A’s) evidence of her statement.
“We conclude therefore that both Ms Edwards and (Employee A) have experienced detriment by late payment of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), which had a significant impact, and we uphold the complaints of victimisation.”