Sky axed women editors with young children

BSkyB is facing a potential £200,000 compensation payout to two female editors after an Employment Tribunal has ruled that the media company axed the women in a “sham redundancy” and therefore unfairly dismissed them.

The Employment Tribunal in Croydon, South London, ruled that Natalie Stone, 34, and Victoria Waterson, 31, were dismissed from their jobs at Sky Movies because they were mothers of young children and that the head of networked media, Mike Taylor, had a “mindset adverse to pregnancy and maternity leave”.

The two women who job-shared a role as video producer were passed over a promotion for the job of video producer. The role went to the then personal assistant of Mike Taylor, Dee Lakhan.

Natalie Stone and Victoria Waterson were then given notice of a 30-day consultation period for possible redundancies following BSkyB’s restructuring. However, after only eight days, they were told the consultation was over.

During the consultation, Mike Taylor questioned both women about whether they intended to have any more children. The women believe they were forced out of the organisation to save on future maternity leave payments.

The Employment Tribunal ruled that Sky Movies had “exaggerated” the difference between the women’s role and the new role created after the restructuring. It said there was “no redundancy situation as there had not been a reduction in need for employees to do work of the kind the claimants had been doing”.

BSkyB was criticised for its “opaque” process of allocating jobs after the reorganisation.

Under employment law, if an employer dismisses an employee (including making them redundant) because of their gender, and they cannot reasonably justify it, the employee will have a claim for automatic unfair dismissal. The dismissal is automatically unfair because the reason behind the dismissal is discriminatory.

The women, represented at the Employment Tribunal by their lawyer husbands, will find out the level of their compensation at a hearing next year. They can each be compensated up to £65,300 for unfair dismissal and unlimited damages for sex-discrimination.

BSkyB issued a statement saying “we’re disappointed with the outcome of this case as we take responsibility to our employees very seriously”. The statement also said that the organisation has recently doubled its maternity provision.