Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Cape Town Labour Court has ordered Quoin Rock Wines to back pay R800 000 to former financial manager Melissa Brendt for unfair dismissal relating to her pregnancy.
Brendt fell pregnant in September 2019 after receiving IVF treatment and informed Company CEO Denis Gaiduk on 3 January 2020 that she would go on maternity leave on 31 May that year.
On 14 May, she was to formally hand over to an employee who would take over her duties for the duration of her 4-month maternity leave. However, she was hospitalised two days prior due to complications with her pregnancy.
She and the newborn baby remained in the hospital until 28 May. They were discharged on 12 June. She did the handover on 15 June.
According to the court judgment, she worked from the hospital before the handover and took work calls.
Brendt and her child were again hospitalised on 25 June, after which she informed Gaiduk she would no longer be involved in the day-to-day operations until the end of her maternity leave on 1 October.
This triggered Gaiduk’s frustrations, who said he could not understand why Brendt was unavailable for work when she could do photoshoots with her newborn child.
At the end of her maternity leave, she returned to work but was instructed not to come back as there was no longer a job for her.
On 4 October, she received a retrenchment notice, which she challenged. The company offered to reinstate her for a lower salary of R29 000 as a “cost-cutting measure”, a reduction of R21 000.
She was also told her position had become redundant because the work had been split between Gaiduk and employees in the finance department.
In his testimony, Gaiduk said Brendt’s pregnancy had caught him by surprise because “she did not have a boyfriend”.
He said he was frustrated by Brendt’s absence, even when she worked from home initially.
“You can’t say you are working from home and then you don’t have time,” he said, adding that he was in a “poor emotional state because of Covid-19”.
The court found that Gaiduk lacked an understanding of his obligation as an employer. It also considered the evidence of a finance employee who had complained to Brendt about the workload, saying this proved her role had not become redundant.
The court ruled that Brendt had done her best under the circumstances and that her unavailability sometimes had not warranted Gaiduk putting her employment under threat.
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